The maker of this robotic waiter had almost all of the parts for this project just sat around collecting dust on a shelf. We’re delighted they decided to take the time to pick up the few extra bits they needed online, then take the extra hour (just an hour?!) to write a program in Python to get this robotic waiter up and running.
It’s learning! Bartending is hard
We are also thrilled to report (having spotted it in the reddit post we found this project on) that the maker had “so much fun picking up and sometimes crushing small things with this claw.” The line between serving drinks and wanting to crush things is thinner than you might imagine.
And in even better news, all the code you need to recreate this build is on GitHub.
Robo arm, HAT, and Raspberry Pi all together
Parts list
First successful straw-drop. Perfecto!
reddit comments bantz
One of our favourite things about finding Raspberry Pi-powered projects on reddit is the comments section. It’s (usually) the perfect mix of light adoration, constructive suggestions, and gateways to tangents we cannot ignore.
Like this one recalling the Rick and Morty sketch in which a cute tiny robot realises their sole purpose is to pass butter:
No swears in this scene! But it is an adult cartoon in general
And also this one pointing us to another robotic arm having a grand old time picking up a tiny ball, sending it down a tiny slide, and then doing it all over again. Because it’s important we know how to make our own fun:
We also greatly enjoyed the fact that the original maker couldn’t use the Rick and Morty “what is my purpose” line to share this project because they are such an uber fan that they already used it for a project they posted just the day before. This cute creation’s sole reason for existing is to hold an Apple pencil while looking fabulous. And we are HERE for it:
Befinitiv has built a custom film cartridge, using a Raspberry Pi Zero W, that turned their gorgeous old analogue camera into a digital one, and enabled it to take digital photos, videos, and even wirelessly live stream to the Internet.
A quick, simple build video for a smooth-running project
The analogue camera they used in the build was considered state-of-the-art around fifty years ago, but it lives on to capture another day, all thanks to a tiny computer we made just a few years ago.
It’s a beauty
The maker replaced the old-fashioned camera film roll with a digital cartridge housing a tiny Raspberry Pi camera — with the lens removed — and a Raspberry Pi Zero W. The housing was designed to fit in the back of the camera where original photographers would have clipped the film roll in, and then spooled it over.
Designed to fit
Along with the camera and the Raspberry Pi Zero W, the custom-built cartridge also houses a LiPo battery and a DC to DC converter, used to boost the power supply to the Raspberry Pi up to +5V.
Teeny tech packed into a teeny space
The whole project took just two hours to complete from start to finish, everything worked first time. Befinitiv had wanted to use the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera, but space inside the housing was just too tight. Maybe next time? Perhaps they can use one of those giant ancient cameras, where the photographer had to flip a blanket over their head, all while holding a stick in the air with the flash.
This old analogue camera is now fully digital
More retro projects from the maker
Fancy more where this retrofit goodness came from? The maker has also upgraded a flip phone from the year 2000. Oh! I just realised the year 2000 was more than 20 years ago. Watch the build video while I go and burn all of my skater boy jeans and slogan t-shirts…
They also did something weird but cool sounding with this noisy teletype machine. Is it a teletype machine? What’s a teletype machine? I saw a fax machine once..?
Holy cyberdecks! Redditor Holistech (aka Sören Gebbert) really leaned in to the “more is more” idiom when building this big orange cyberdeck using three Raspberry Pis. Why use just one screen to manipulate enemy cyberware and take down your cyberpunk foes, when you can have six?
Rear view (keep reading for the big reveal)
From four to six
We first came across Sören’s work on hackster.io and we were impressed with what we found, which was this four‑screen creation running Linux Mint on a dual Raspberry Pi setup:
The first, four-screen, iteration of this project is still impressive
So imagine our surprise when we clicked through to check out Holistech on reddit, only to be confronted with this six‑screen monstrosity of brilliance:
Level up
He’s only gone and levelled up his original creation already. And before we even had the chance to properly swoon over the original.
Under the hood
Originally, Sören wanted to use Raspberry Pi Zero because they’re tiny and easily hidden away inside projects. He needed more power though, so he went with Raspberry Pi 4 instead.
The whole family
Sören 3D-printed the distinctive orange frame. On the back of the rig are openings for a fan for active cooling and a mini control display that shows the CPU temperature and the fan speed.
Six 5.5″ HD resolution screens are the eyes of the project. And everything is powered by hefty 26,000 mAh battery power banks.
Carry on
And it gets even better: this whole multi-screen thing is portable. Yes, portable. You can fold it up, pack it away in its suitably steampunk metal box, and carry it with you.
There are plenty more photos. Head to Instagram to take a closer look at how Sören’s genius design folds in on itself to enable portability.
During lockdown, Stuart (aka JamHamster) wanted to keep busy whilst between jobs, and ended up building a mini empire of rescued retro systems. Cassette tapes, Game Boys, and floppy disks were all among the treasures he reclaimed.
Stuart calls this the “shelf of deceit” – where nothing is what it appears to be
Cassette tape starter
Stuart got started by fitting a TZXDuino tape loader into a cassette tape shell. Remember those? This allows him to load software onto a ZX Spectrum by inserting a tape into the tape deck, just as Nature intended. He has since improved the design (check out V2 on YouTube) and carefully documented it on GitHub, so people can build their own.
With that first project in the bag and getting attention on a Facebook group (Spectrum for Everyone), Stuart went forth and sourced more retro tech to revive with tiny pieces of new technology.
Twitter lit up for Stuart’s retrofit cassette tape
Enter Raspberry Pi
Then Stuart discovered our tiny computer and realised there was heaps of scope for hiding them inside older tech. Although we can’t quite officially endorse Stuart’s method of “carefully” removing a port on his Raspberry Pi – it’ll void your warranty – we will say that we like people who go about intentionally voiding their warranties. It’s a cool video.
You can see all the modern devices labelled alongside the retro tech they’re encased in
He has since created loads of retrofit projects with Raspberry Pi. Let’s take a quick look at a few of them.
First up is a Game Boy build with a Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+. Stuart built an aluminium chassis from scrap, and this sandwiches the Raspberry Pi to hold it in place inside the Game Boy enclosure, as well as acting as a heatsink. There’s a grille in the cartridge and he also added four rear buttons. The hardest part of this build, apparently, was soldering the custom HDMI cable.
Better-than-real CRT screen
Stuart liked the look of an old-fashioned CRT (cathode-ray tube) screen for playing retro games on, but they chew through energy and aren’t that portable. So he had the idea to make a space-efficient LCD system that sits on a desktop and just looks like a retro TV.
Wait for the heroes in half-shells at the end
This project features a 3.5-inch screen of the type that’s usually found on a car dashboard to help the driver to reverse. Stuart converted it to 5V, and added a cut-down Raspberry Pi 3 and a custom-machined chassis. A custom-ground curved lens makes it look like a real CRT, and he added ports on the back for two Atari joysticks, as well as an external composite input and USB.
This Raspberry Pi-powered “CRT” display has two onboard Atari joystick ports and plenty of connectors for other machines
Stuart’s sister gave him her Game Gear to fix, but the batteries leaked and killed it so he converted it to a Raspberry Pi 3B portable gaming system. And because it was for his sister, he went all out, spending six weeks refining it.
He also ended up rewriting elements of the Arduino Joystick library for responsiveness and ease of configuration. Here’s the Github link for those interested in that part of the build.
Check out the carnage that Stuart rescued with Raspberry Pi 3B
RetroPie cassette
Stuart’s latest cassette build features a Raspberry Pi Zero running RetroPie. He wanted to make one with a transparent case, so he encased the Raspberry Pi in a heatsink sandwich to hide the wiring. He added a full-size USB port and a 3.5 mm media connector for sound and visuals. Here are some shots of the inside.
I love the 80s green
Try new things, expect failure, enjoy the process
There were far too many cracking retro builds for us to list here, so follow Stuart on Twitter @RealJamHamster and subscribe to JamHamster on YouTube to properly check everything out.
They need hefty heatsinks, but Stuart likes working with metal and had fun with some of the designs
Makers, tinkerers, and crafters don’t always have a practical reason for embarking on projects, and Stuart is no different. Here’s what he had to say about why projects like this make him happy:
“I will be happy to admit that I have no clue what I’m doing most of the time, and I am by no means an expert, but I believe everyone should try new things as you never know what you’ll be good at. 9 out of 10 of my ideas don’t work but that tenth one is generally pretty good. I’ve been between roles during lockdown so I am building these out of scrap metal and whatever I have lying around, which is an extra challenge. My philosophy is to try new things, expect failure, learn to enjoy the process and that it’ll be done when it’s done.”
I speak English. Super well. And I can read the rough, overall vibe of writing in French. I can also order beer and taxis in Spanish. Alas, my dog can do none of these things, and we are left in communication limbo. I try asking them (in English) why they’re so mean to that one Cockapoo who lives across the road, or why they don’t understand the importance of the eyedrops the vet insists I have to hold their eyelids open to administer. They just respond with a variety of noises that I cannot translate. We need to fix this, and thankfully NerdStoke has harnessed Raspberry Pi to build a solution.
NerdStroke’s YouTube channel is new, but good. Subscribe to it! (Video features some bleeped-out strong language, as well as one unbleeped mild swear)
How does it work?
The dog wears a harness with a microphone that picks up its barks. The barks get processed through a device that determines what the dog is saying and then outputs it through speakers.
Raspberry Pi Zero is the affordable brain powering NerdStoke’s solution to this age-old human-and-pup problem. But writing code that could translate the multitude of frequencies coming out of a dog’s mouth when it barks was a trickier problem. NerdStoke tried to work it through on Twitch with fellow hobbyists, but alas, the original dream had to be modified.
The kit worked fine – it was the coding challenge that changed the course of this project
Spoiler alert: fast Fourier transforms did not work. You would need a clear, pure tone for that to work in a project like this, but as we said above, dogs bark in a rainbow of tones, pitches, and all the rest.
So what’s the solution?
Because of this, a time-based model was devised to predict what a dog is likely to be barking about at any given time of day. For example, if it’s early morning, they probably want to go out to pee. But if it’s mid-morning, they’re probably letting you know the postman has arrived and is trying to challenge your territory by pushing thin paper squares through the flap in your front door. It’s a dangerous world out there, and dogs just want to protect us.
Nerdstoke had his good friend record some appropriate soundbites to go with each bark, depending on what time of day it happened. And now, Nugget the dog can tell you “I want to cuddle” or “Why aren’t you feeding me?”
Same, Nugget, same
While the final project couldn’t quite translate the actual thoughts of a dog, we love the humour behind this halfway solution. And we reckon the product name, Holler Collar, would definitely sell.
Follow NerdStoke’s future projects
NerdStroke is all over the socials, so follow them on your platform of choice:
Maker keanuDav was always forgetting to turn on his bike lights when riding out in the dark. He also never knew how fast he was going, or how long his rides were. So he created a shareable smart bike that automatically turns the lights on or off and keeps track of where you’ve ridden. The project uses a RFID scanner so somebody else can use the bike without messing with Keanu’s personal ride data.
Keanu’s creation sits neatly on the bike’s rear rack
And features an LCD screen
Here in Cambridge, if you forget to take your clip-on lights off your bike when you lock it up, chances are they won’t be there when you go back. We reckon this Raspberry Pi-powered solution could work for us here in the UK’s leading cycling city too, since there’s nothing to easily unclip and walk away with.
Keanu totted up the total price of the build, including wood and the light, at around €145.
How does it all fit together?
We’re not going to lie: the smart bike looks tricky to recreate. I mean, that is a lot of wires. And several bits of hardware. But it does perform multiple functions for the rider, so we can put up with a little fiddliness.
So many wires. *Rocks back and forth* So many wires.
And don’t worry, Keanu is a hero and shared this Fritzing diagram on his instructable, which is handily set out in a twelve-step format so you can follow along easily.
See, it’s all simple once you know how
How do you collect all the data?
Keanu explains:
“The RFID scanner is used with the arduino. I read out the data from the scanner with the arduino and send it to the Raspberry Pi with Serial USB.
The GPS module is also using serial communication. The data the GPS sends to the Raspberry Pi is not that well formatted, so I used a library to parse the data and make it a lot easier to use.
The analog values from the LDR are converted using the mcp3008 (an adc), then I transform the value to a percentage.”
Keanu stores the data in a relational database in mySQL. Then the database and a python script run together on the Raspberry Pi. Here’s everything you need on GitHub.
Take a ride
On top of the impressive coding and electrical skills, Keanu is a dab hand at woodwork. You could use a pre-made box in another material if that’s not your thing. It just needs a hole for the LCD screen to show through.
Make sure to check out maker Keanu’s step-by-step tutorial explaining how he made the smart bike.
When maker Stéphane (aka HalStar) set about building this self-playing xylophone, their goal was to learn more about robotics, and to get hands-on with some mechanical parts they had never used before, in this case solenoids.
They also wanted to experiment with Raspberry Pi to build something that reflected their love of music. This automated instrument, capable of playing hundreds of MIDI files, fits the brief.
Let me introduce you to Stéphane’s self-playing xylophone
Two factors constrained the design: Stéphane wanted to be able to do it all using parts from the local DIY store, and to use as many regular modules as possible. So, no breadboard or wires everywhere, and no custom PCB. Just something simple to assemble and neat.
This extra video goes into more detail about the build process
Hardware
Raspberry Pi Zero WH is the teeny tiny brain of the self-playing xylophone. And its maker’s build details video very helpfully labels all the parts, where they sit, and what’s connected to what.
There we are (#4) working away to make the xylophone play
These three buttons select the tracks, set the tempo, and set the mode. Choose between playing all loaded tracks or just one. You can also decide whether you want all tracks to play on repeat in a loop, or stop after your selections have played through. A two-inch LCD screen shows you what’s going on.
Twist and click to choose your settings
The right notes
While there are thousands of MIDI files freely available online, very few of them could actually be played by the xylophone. With only 32 notes, the instrument is limited in what it can play without losing any notes. Also, even when a MIDI file uses just 32 consecutive notes, they might not be the same range of 32 notes as the xylophone has, so you need to transpose. Stéphane developed a tool in Python to filter out 32-note tunes from thousands of MIDI files and automatically transpose them so the xylophone can play them. And, yes, everything you need to copy this filtering and transposing function is on GitHub.
In all its glory
Now, Stéphane says that whenever friends or family visit their home, they’re curious and impressed to see this strange instrument play by itself. Sadly, we are not among Stéphane’s family or friends; fortunately, though, this project has an entire YouTube playlist, so we can still have a look and a listen to see it in action up close.
Wait, isn’t that a glockenspiel?
We know it’s technically a glockenspiel. Stéphane acknowledges it is technically a glockenspiel. But we are firm fans of their going down the xylophone route, because way more people know what one of those is. If you’re interested, the difference between a xylophone and the glockenspiel is the material used for the bars. A xylophone has wooden bars, whereas glockenspiel bars are metal.
Diehard Nintendo and Star Wars fan electrouser301 is behind this customised R2D2 Raspberry Pi-powered console. Raspberry Pi 3 Model B is its brain, and a Nintendo GameCube was customised with spray paint and hand-cut stencils.
“When I saw what people were doing with Raspberry Pi and emulation it opened up a new world to me. If you would have shown kid-me that I could play the whole libraries of NES, N64, Arcade games, Genesis, SNES, etc. all on one console that you create yourself, to your own specifications, my mind would have been blown. That’s what this whole project was about, bringing back my inner child. I wanted to create and own something that no one else has.”
Inner workings of R2D2 Cube
Of course, you could just deck out a GameCube case with decals or paint and keep the internals the same if you don’t want to swap a Raspberry Pi in for emulation. But where’s the fun in that?
See the machine’s power circuit plugged into the Raspberry Pi’s micro USB power slot below. The red and green wires are LED wires, and the power switch wires are pink.
And here’s a side view of the guts of the project:
R2D2 makeover
Hand-cut R2D2-inspired paper stencils spray-painted onto the GameCube give it its instantly recognisable style. A unique retro device now adorns electrouser301’s gaming space, and new life has been breathed into one of Nintendo’s finest creations.
R2D2-approved blue and white colour scheme
Top Star Wars maker projects
Take a look at electromaker’s list of Best Star Wars Maker Projects – it’s where we came across this R2D2 GameCube mashup. Naturally, the list features a fair few homemade lightsabers, so check it out if you’re in the market for an upgrade; however, we wanted to share a few Star Wars-themed builds we hadn’t seen before.
First up, an animated Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie poster made with NeoPixel LEDs and an Arduino Mega. Steve from Making at Home coded a built-in motion sensor and customisable brightness settings. Check it out below, because this isn’t just any old poster with a few LEDs taped in the back, oh no.
You know we love wearable tech around here, so this DIY Boba Fett helmet with a built-in LED chaser was definitely going to be a favourite. This is a fairly affordable build too, consisting of a few cheap components like LEDs and resistors, while the helmet itself is made from crafty stuff found around the house. Crazy Couple created this project and you should check out their tutorial-packed YouTube channel.
BB8 occupies a special place in our hearts, so we love this 3D-printed robot, which is controlled by an Arduino Uno over a Bluetooth connection from your smartphone. Watch maker Lewis’s video below and share in his love for this spherical droid.
Drop some links in the comments to show off your Star Wars-themed builds so we can share in your intergalactic wisdom. Then go be friends with Electromaker on YouTube. Because subscribers of them you should be.
If you’re a fan of the animated TV series Adventure Time, you’re already excited and scrolling to see how you can build your own Be MOre (BMO) console. And if you’re not: BMO is Adventure Time main characters Finn’s and Jake’s sentient video game system-cum-roomate.
See, you recognise it now, don’t you?
OK, but what does BMO do?
DIY enthusiast Lazuardi Rinaldi, an Electrical & Computer Engineering student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is behind this retrogaming build. Lazuardi notes that this build is for people with experience of working with electronic projects. You can recreate this project with whatever parts you have to hand, as the build-guide is open-ended, but Lazuardi lovingly built his using Raspberry Pi.
BMO is full of teeny boards and buttons
The ‘real’ BMO can do pretty much anything from making toast to playing detective, but this one was built especially to play RetroPie games on Raspberry Pi. So it’s even better than the original. Maybe.
Main parts
Tight fit
Hand-built
Laser-cut acrylic plexiglass sheets beautifully house the electronics. Everything had to be perfectly measured to fit Lazuardi’s custom-built controller; the buttons were individually soldered to the perfboard through the already-cut plexiglass.
Precision cutting gives BMO its professional finish
And the carefully-applied sticker sheets made the whole thing look just like the real BMO.
Who’s a pretty Beemo then?
Level-up
Lazuardi plans to add some speakers so they can hear the game music as they play. We reckon making BMO’s legs robotic so it can come and find you when you haven’t played in a while would be a cool addition. Creepy, but cool.
By the way, all the brilliant images and GIFs you see here are from Lazuardi’s original instructable, and I loved them so I borrowed them. This is my fave…
Level up your Guitar Hero gaming with Nick O’Hara’s Jon Bot Jovi Guitar Hero robot. While Nick admits this is an expensive project (around $1000 to build), it’s something that was so “ridiculous, hilarious, and awesome” he felt he just needed to do it.
While you’re not great at Guitar Hero, Nick, you ARE good at making robots
You’re halfway to shredding a Bon Jovi chorus perfectly on Guitar Hero and you can taste the fame. Problem is, you’re no Jon Bon Jovi. Or Peter Frampton. Or Slash. So you need Raspberry Pi to assist your rockstar dreams. Enter Jon Bot Jovi.
Kit list
What is a solenoid?
Close-up of mechanical fretboard
A solenoid is just a coil of wire, but when you pass an electric current through it acts as an electromagnet, and a magnetic field is generated. When you turn the current off, the magnetic field goes away. Inside the coil of wire is a metal rod, when the current is on and the magnetic field is present, the rod is free to move in the direction of the field. In this way, a solenoid converts electrical energy into movement and the rod moves in or out of the coil depending on the current applied.
Here, a Raspberry Pi controls a bunch of solenoids as they press and release the buttons on the guitar controller to give Nick his god-like skills. Watch the build video on YouTube for a simple walkthrough of how this all works.
It’s tricky
Building the mechanical fingers and solenoids was one of the trickiest parts of the build. Nick ended up burning through a lot of them as he’s new to robotics and didn’t understand the relationship between power, voltage, and current, so they burnt out quickly. Luckily, he found a robotics guy to give him a 30-minute crash course, which set the project on the right path. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
Fret board close-up courtesy of Jeremy Cook on hackster.io
Note recognition was also far from an easy task. Nick originally tried to look at specific pixels on the screen, which worked for slow songs, but for faster songs it would miss around 30% of the notes. He eventually turned to OpenCV, but it took a fair amount of effort to hone the perfect filtering to make the note recognition accurate. Fiddly, but worth it.
Shred, guitar hero!
Nick’s favourite part of the project?
“Seeing Jon Bot Jovi absolutely shred on the guitar. Did you see how fast he’s strumming during Through the Fire and the Flames?!”
We love seeing a maker so happy with a final build and we wish we could come and play too! (We are similarly stunted in our guitar-playing abilities.)
Nick wrote a project post on Hacker News for those who are curious about the more technical details. And the original build video on YouTube is a wild ride, so check it out and subscribe to Nick’s channel.
The Orient Express. The Flying Scotsman. Ivor the Engine. All juggernauts of the rail community, but none powered by our microcontroller and all, thus, inferior in our eyes. Raspberry Pi Pico has been used in cooler and more interesting ways every day since its launch in January this year, but this is the first time we’ve seen it powering a miniature railway. KushagraK7 shared this compact application on Instructables, and we ended up down a rabbit hole of model trains enthusiasm.
The Motor Channel on YouTube is a great community for miniature railway enthusiasts
What does Raspberry Pi Pico do here?
KushagraK7’s Raspberry Pi Pico controls the track voltage to control the speed of the train using pulse-width modulation (PWM). PWM is a method of reducing the average power delivered by an electrical signal. A motor driver powers the locomotive itself.
You gotta speed it up and then you gotta slow it down
This particular setup is designed to make the train start off slowly then speed up gradually each time it travels over a sensored segment of the track — that is, a segment equipped with an infrared sensor to detect whether a train is there. A therapeutic loop of the speeding-up process plays from this point in KushagraK7’s YouTube video.
The ‘sensored’ part of the train track ready to be connected
Once the train reaches its top speed, it slows down again, coming to a complete halt after it passes the sensored track section once more. The train stops for a set amount of time, then starts up again. Fast, faster, slow, stop. Fast, faster, slow, stop. And on and on and on again. All without any human interaction needed – you can just watch. Super satisfying.
Learn how to make a low-cost sensored track “in minutes” with this previous Instructable from the maker
How do I build it?
KushagraK7 has created an illustrated step-by-step tutorial for other miniature railway enthusiasts to follow, including when you should tidy up your wires, plus ideas to tinker with the code to adjust speed and stopping patterns.
Point us to your Raspberry Pi-powered model railway projects in the comments. Choo choooooooo.
Alexandre’s goal was to build something that looks like an ordinary piece of furniture, and that you’d have no idea is an arcade machine until you flip it open. It’s a fully functional two-player device and it requires no coding skills to set up.
Big build
It’s a big piece of furniture, so you’ll need a big space and a good table saw to get all the wood cut. Alexandre made the whole thing out of just one piece of oak plywood. He’s a woodwork perfectionist, and didn’t want any visible screws on the finished product, so he had to get fancy with biscuit joints. He also ironed on edge banding, to give an extra-smooth finish to the rough cuts of plywood.
Master carpenter in his giant workshop
Hardware
The electronics for the build arrived by way of a complete kit containing everything needed to make the joysticks and buttons. The kit came with a little circuit board which all the buttons and joysticks plug into, and the output is a simple USB which connects to the Raspberry Pi brain of the system.
Raspberry Pi and wiring for buttons and joystick all tucked away in the back of the wooden frame
Parts list
(These are all links to the actual products used in this project)
Software
Alexandre had never used a Raspberry Pi before, but still found the electronics the easiest part of this build.
Retro gaming easily accessible in your home
This tutorial video made it easy to load up RetroPie software on the Raspberry Pi’s SD card and get some games onto a USB stick. And this video showed him how to run games from a USB device.
Sleek design
Everything is so neatly tucked away in this design. A slot for the USB cable and a Raspberry Pi reset switch are built into the wooden frame, so absolutely none of the electronics are on show.
Driver drowsiness detection was the original application for this project, and Raspberry Pi was chosen for it because it’s small enough to not obstruct a driver’s view and can be powered from a vehicle’s 12 V socket or a USB port.
Teeny tiny setup
Our Raspberry Pi NoIR Camera has no infrared filter and can therefore detect infrared light. It was chosen for this project to help with driver visibility by infrared illumination in low light, because night time is when people are more likely to become drowsy.
Never drive tired
Firstly, you should absolutely never drive tired. The UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency says that, by law, after every 5 hours 30 minutes of driving you must take a break of at least 30 minutes.
We’re sharing this project because we like the software behind this sleepiness detector, which can tell when your eyes narrow and alert you before you nod off. A safer application of this invention could be for exam cramming season when you don’t want to fall asleep before reading that final chapter of your revision guide. Or perhaps for the sleepier among us who need extra help staying awake for the New Year’s Eve countdown. We cannot miss another one of those. But we get SO sleepy.
How does SleePi work?
How SleepPi uses EAR to detect sleepiness in the eyes
The camera tracks the position of the eyes and uses something called the Eye Aspect Ratio (EAR) to detect blinks. When squinting or blinking is observed, Raspberry Pi thinks you’re getting sleepy. When sleepiness is detected, a loud alarm sounds via the Raspberry Pi’s AUX port, connected to the car’s speaker system. The alarm carries on sounding until the camera detects that the user’s eyes are completely open again.
It’s been a while since we saw a good jukebox retrofit project, so when we saw this old Wurlitzer transformed into a modern, all-in digital jukebox, we had to share it.
Maker Marc Engrie’s cousin came across an old Wurlitzer on a local online second-hand store. The seller had imported it from the US and intended to convert it himself but never got round to it, so he ended up selling it on. Marc’s cousin enticed him with some photos of the Wurlitzer and asked how much it would cost him to breathe new life into the jukebox.
Name your price
Marc already had three Raspberry Pis at home running music streaming software Volumio, so he felt confident he could harness the power of our tiny computer to bring this classic objet d’art back to life. Adding on hardware costs, he figured he could restore it to its former glory for €600 (about £500).
Once the jukebox was delivered, Marc stripped everything away, including the unfinished work of the previous restorer. The iconic enclosure was all that was left, along with the loudspeakers.
Adding new hardware
A 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and a Raspberry Pi Touch Display form the new brain and face of the Wurlitzer. HiFiBerry‘s DAC+ Pro allows music to play from a USB stick. Other devices can play music from an auxiliary-in port.
The two sides of the new face of the jukebox
Marc added a 2 x 2-channel audio amp (2 x 100W for the woofers plus 2 x 100W for mid/high). It’s easy to install and uninstall in case the jukebox ever needs repairing.
And as a final modern finishing touch, he swapped all the original lights for LEDs.
NEAT wire control
Lots of docs
Marc is a super diligent maker and has crafted a spreadsheet showing all the hardware, prices, and retailers. You can also get your hands on a comprehensive software setup instructions, as well as a hardware map showing you how all the Wurlitzer’s new insides fit together. Better still, there’s a whole user manual showing you how every single button and switch works. We think his middle name should be ‘Thorough’. Super, top, detailed job, Marc.
Play me!
See more from Marc
Check out more of Marc’s electronics projects here. There’s a weather station, an automated greenhouse, a chicken shed with an automatic door, and more.
Maker Manu (@mrcatacroquer) is one inventive grandson, and he has warmed the cold hearts of Twitter with his Raspberry Pi-powered creation Yayagram. Manu’s mission was to help older family members keep in contact with their grandchildren.
Analogue design makes Yayagram simple to use
What does Yayagram mean?
It’s a portmanteau, a mashup between the words “Yaya” and “telegram.” Yaya means “Granny” in Castilian Spanish – it’s a warm and affectionate way to refer to your grandmother. And Manu’s project uses the Telegram messaging platform, so he added “gram” onto the end to make “Yayagram”.
What does it do?
Yayagram is no one-trick pony. It lets you communicate with your elders in two ways:
Send voice messages via Telegram by simply holding down a button
Receive replies printed onto thermal paper
Manu’s Yaya getting to grips with her new chatting machine
Manu’s Yaya has trouble hearing, so phone calls don’t really go well. Technology-wise, many older people rely on others to set up video calls, but Yayagram allows them to be more independent and start conversations on their own, whenever they like.
How does it work?
A Raspberry Pi 4 powers the whole thing, running third-party Python libraries. Hardware-wise, it’s all jack connectors, LEDs, cables, a receipt printer, a mic, and buttons. Manu’s Twitter thread details all of this.
To send a new voice message, Manu’s Yaya chooses which grandchild she wants to contact and plugs in a jack connector next to their name. We love this retro element: this is the job that cable girls used to do at the big telephone exchanges.
“How may I direct your call?”
Sending a voice message is a very simple, analogue experience. Press and hold the record button, talk into the microphone, then release the record button when you’re finished. Yayagram then automatically sends your voice message to your chosen recipient. Tech-savvy grandchildren get a receipt on their smart phone like in the image below, letting them know they have a Yayagram from their favourite grandparent.
Always keep your receipts
Yayagram perfectly bridges the cross-generational technology divide by printing the text replies to voice messages on thermal paper. Grandparents can touch and read them, just like an old telegram.
A printed version of a text reply
We hereby anoint Manu ‘Most Creative Grandson’. Give him a follow on Twitter by way of a prize.
How many of you have woken up grumpy from being snored at all night? Or maybe you’re the snorer whose sleep is interrupted by being elbowed in the ribs to get you to stop. Not only does snoring keep your partner awake, it also affects the quality of your own sleep, even though you might not realise it.
Bryan and Brayden Staley think they’ve come up with a solution: a wearable hearing support device and a Raspberry Pi work together to send the wearer a haptic signal when they start snoring, which soothes them and disrupts the cycle.
Wristwear stops you snoring
The wearable device that this project hinges on is the Neosensory Buzz. Worn on the wrist, it helps people with hearing difficulties pick up on things like doorbells, alarms, and even their name being called.
Working alongside the Buzz bracelet is a sound inference base, which consists of a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and a Seeed ReSpeaker. The sound inference base picks up and classifies audio, and specifically recognises snoring. Once it detects a certain number of snoring events, it sends a sinusoidal signal to the Buzz bracelet, and continues until audio level falls below the snoring threshold.
Hardware
GitHub repos
ss-app (provides the utilities used to build up a Raspberry Pi from scratch to perform audio classification)
YouTuber Alfredo Sequeida turned a Nerf gun into a controller for playing Call of Duty: Warzone. This is a fun-looking modification project, but some serious coding went into the process.
Head to the 13-minute mark for an in-game demonstration
Trigger happy
Funnily enough, the Nerf gun that Alfredo chose was a special edition Fortnite model. This irked him as a Call of Duty player, but this model had the most potential to accommodate the modifications he knew he wanted.
The screen is an old Android phone which lends its accelerometer to the project
The controller uses the Nerf gun’s original trigger. Alfredo designed extra 3D-printed buttons (white dots on the far right) to let him perform more in-game actions like moving, plating, and jumping.
Software
A Raspberry Pi 4 powers the whole thing, running Python scripts Alfredo wrote for both the Raspberry Pi and his gaming PC. Here’s all the code on GitHub.
Gameplay movement is controlled by getting accelerometer data via the command-line tool ADB logcat from an old Nexus 5 Android phone that’s mounted on the Nerf gun. The data is logged using a custom app Alfredo made on Android Studio.
A Raspberry Pi 4 wired up to all the buttons on the other side of the Nerf gun
Part of the action
The controller’s design makes players feel part of the action as their Call of Duty operator scouts around locations. It’s a much more immersive experience than holding an ordinary game controller in your lap or tapping away at a PC keyboard. Alfredo even plays standing up now his NERF gun controller is in action. He might as well be on a real life Special Ops mission.
The Nerf gun complements the gameplay view that Call of Duty players have
More Call of Duty mod ideas…
So what’s next, Alfredo? We vote you make some modded night vision googles out of an old Viewmaster toy. That’ll totally work, right?
I am 90% sure young Alfredo doesn’t know what a Viewmaster is (even I had to Google it)
Over the nine-ish years since the release of our first model, we’ve watched grow a thriving global community of Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, hobbyists, and educators. But did you know that Raspberry Pi is also increasingly used in scientific research?
Some of the scientific applications of Raspberry Pi that Jolle found
Dr Jolle Jolles, a behavioural ecologist at the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) near Barcelona, Spain, and a passionate Raspberry Pi user, has recently published a detailed review of the uptake of Raspberry Pi in biological sciences. He found that well over a hundred published studies have made use of Raspberry Pi hardware in some way.
How can Raspberry Pi help in biological sciences?
The list of applications is almost endless. Here are just a few:
Plant phenotyping (These clever people made a ‘Greenotyper’ with Raspberry Pi)
Smart bird-feeders (we shared this one, which teaches pigeons, on the blog)
High-throughput behavioural recording systems
Autonomous ecosystem monitoring (you can listen to the Borneo rainforest with this project)
Closed-loop virtual reality (there are just too many VR projects using Raspberry Pi to choose from. Here’s a few)
Dr Jolles spreading the good word about our tiny computers
Onwards and upwards
Jolle’s review shows that use of Raspberry Pi is on the up, with more studies documenting the use of Raspberry Pi hardware every year, but he’s keen to see it employed even more widely.
“It is really great to see the broad range of applications that already exist, with Raspberry Pi’s helping biologists in the lab, the field, and in the classroom. However, Raspberry Pi is still not the common research tool that it could be”.
Jolle Jolles
Hard at work
How can I use Raspberry Pi in my research?
To stimulate the uptake of Raspberry Pi and help researchers integrate it into their work, the review paper offers guidelines and recommendations. Jolle also maintains a dedicated website with over 30 tutorials: raspberrypi-guide.github.io
“I believe low-cost micro-computers like the Raspberry Pi are a powerful tool that can help transform and democratize scientific research, and will ultimately help push the boundaries of science.”
‘Pirecorder’ for automating image and video capture
Jolle has also previously published a very handy software package especially with biological scientists in mind. It’s called pirecorder and helps with automated image and video recording using Raspberry Pi. You can check it out here: https://github.com/JolleJolles/pirecorder.
You can keep up with Jolle on Instagram, where he documents all the dreamy outdoor projects he’s working on.
Drop a comment below if you’ve seen an interesting scientific application of Raspberry Pi, at work, on TV, or maybe just in your imagination while you wait to find the time to build it!
We here at Virtual Raspberry Pi Towers are looking forward to our weekends getting warmer, now that we are officially in British Summer Time. But we wanted to make the most of these last Saturdays and Sundays in which we have no choice but to cosy up against the typically British spring weather with a good old-fashioned YouTube rabbit hole.
Here are a few channels we think you’ll like. Some we’ve known about for a while, others are new friends we’ve made over the last year or so, and one is almost brand new so we’re putting you ahead of the curve there. You’re welcome.
Blitz City DIY (aka Liz) is a “DIY-er on a quest to gather and share knowledge” and has already built something cool with our newest baby, Raspberry Pi Pico. Her busy channel features computing, audio, video, coding, and more.
Check out Raspberry Pi Pico in action in this recent video from Blitz City DIY
We love Liz an extra lot because her channel features on entire playlist dedicated to Raspberry Pi Adventures. She also shares a healthy dose of festive content showing you how to Tech the Halls. No, April is NOT too early for Christmas stuff.
Our new friends at Electromaker share tutorials, community projects, and contests where subscribers win hardware and massive cash prizes. Flat cap aficionado Ian Buckley also hosts The Electromaker Show – a weekly roundup of all that’s new and interesting in the maker community.
You can also swing by the super useful online shop where you can buy everything you need to recreate some of the projects featured. If you’re daunted by shopping for every little bit you need to create something awesome, you can choose one of these electro {maker KITS} and get right to it. We especially like the Lightsaber and Daft Punk-esque helmet kits.
You must have seen an Estefannie Explains It All video by now. But did you know about the weekly livestreams she hosts on Instagram? We know you’ll watch just because she’s cool and sometimes holds her pet cat up to the camera, but you’ll definitely want to tune in to try and win one of her tech giveaways. Some lucky viewers even got their hands on a Raspberry Pi 400.
Ruth Amos and Shawn Brown use their channel Kids Invent Stuff to bring kids’ ideas to life by making them into real working inventions. Young people aged 4–11 can submit their ideas or take part in regular invention challenges.
The MagPi Magazine got to know Ruth a little better in a recent interview. And Ruth also features in the 2021 Princesses with Power Tools calendar, as a welding Rapunzel. Go on, you know you want to buy one.
Ellora James
We saved the best (and newest) for last. Ellora James is brand new to YouTube. Her first tutorial showing you how to use Pimoroni’s Grow HAT Mini Kit was posted just three weeks ago, and she added a project update this week.
Ella helps you differentiate between edible pie and Raspberry Pi
We really like her video showing beginners how to set up their first Raspberry Pi. But our favourite is the one above in which she tackles one of the Universe’s big questions.
YouTuber Chris Courses takes hydration seriously, but all those minutes spent filling up water bottles take a toll. 15 hours per year, to be exact. Chris regularly uses three differently sized water bottles and wanted to build something to fill them all to their exact measurements.
(Polite readers may like to be warned of a couple of bleeped swears and a rude whiteboard drawing a few minutes into this video.)
Hardware
Raspberry Pi
Water filter (Chris uses this one, which you would find in a fridge with a built-in water dispenser)
Solenoid valve (which only opens when an electrical signal is sent to it)
The solenoid valve and Raspberry Pi, which work together to make this project happen
How does the hardware work?
The solenoid valve determines when water can and cannot pass through. Mains water comes in through one tube and passes through the water filter, then the solenoid valve releases water via another tube into the bottle.
See – simples!
What does the Raspberry Pi do?
The Raspberry Pi sends a signal to the solenoid valve telling it to open for a specific amount of time — the length of time it takes to fill a particular water bottle — and to close when that time expires. Chris set this up to start running when he clicks a physical button.
We feel the same way about Raspberry Pi, Chris
Chris also programmed lights to indicate when the dispenser is turned on. This manual coding proved to be the most time-consuming part of the project.
But all the wires look so ugly!
Sleek and discreet
Chris agreed, so he 3D-printed a beautiful enclosure to house what he dubs the ‘Hydrobot 5000’. It’s a sleek black casing that sits pretty in his kitchen on a wall next to the fridge. It took a fair bit of fridge shuffling and electrical mounting to “sit pretty”, however. This Raspberry Pi-powered creation needed to be connected to a water source, so the tubing had to be snaked from Hydrobot 5000, behind appliances, to the kitchen sink.
Check out those disco lights! Nice work, Chris. Follow Chris on YouTube for loads more coding and dev videos.
Easter is nearly upon us, and we’ll be stepping away from our home-office desks for a few days. Before we go, we thought we’d share some cool Easter-themed projects from the Raspberry Pi community.
Teacher Klaus Rabeder designed, 3D-printed, and built a robot which his students programmed in Python to paint eggs with Easter designs. Each student came up with their own design and then programmed the robot to recreate it. The robot can draw letters and numbers, patterns, and figures (such as an Easter bunny) on an egg, as well as a charming meadow made of randomly calculated blades of grass. Each student took home the egg bearing their unique design.
The machine has three axes of movement: one that rotates the egg, one that moves the pens up and down, and one that makes servo motors put the pen tips onto the egg’s surface. Each servo is connected to two pens. Springs between the servo and pen make sure not too much pressure is applied.
What a cool way to spend your computing lessons!
Digital Easter egg hunt
Go digital this Easter
Why hunt for chocolate eggs in a race against time before they melt, when you can go digital? Our very own Alex made this quick and easy game with a Raspberry Pi, a few wires, and some simple code. Simply unwrap your chocolate eggs and rewrap them with the silver side of the foil facing outwards to make them more conductive. The wires create a circuit, and when the circuit is closed with the foil-wrapped egg, the Raspberry Pi reveals the location of a bigger chocolate egg.
All the code and kit you need to recreate this game yourself is here.
Incubate baby chicks
The second-best thing about this time of year — after all the chocolate — is the cute baby animals. Lambs and bunnies get a special mention, but this project makes sure that chicken eggs are properly incubated to help baby chicks hatch. Maker Dennis Hejselbak added a live-streaming camera so he and other chick fans can keep an eye on things.
We’re sad to report that Emma still hasn’t revised her ‘No office chicks’ policy since we first reported this project back in 2015. Maybe next year?
Happy Easter!
Stand by for a delicious new issue of Wireframe magazine tomorrow. We’ll see you on Tuesday!
You can always rely on Ryder’s YouTube channel to be full of weird and wonderful makes. This latest offering aims to boost dopamine levels with dog spotting. Looking at dogs makes you happier, right? But you can’t spend all day looking out of the window waiting for a dog to pass, right? Well, a Raspberry Pi Camera Module and machine learning can do the dog spotting for you.
Ryder’s Raspberry Pi and camera sit on a tripod pointing out of a window looking over a street. Live video of the street is taken by the camera and fed through a machine learning model. Ryder chose the YOLO v3 object detection model, which can already recognise around 80 different things — from dogs to humans, and even umbrellas.
Camera set up ready for dog spotting
Doggo passing announcements
But how would Ryder know that his Raspberry Pi had detected a dog? They’re so sneaky — they work in silence. A megaphone and some text-to-speech software make sure that Ryder is alerted in time to run to the window and see the passing dog. The megaphone announces: “Attention! There is a cute dog outside.”
The machine learning program clearly labels a ‘person’ and a ‘dog’
“Hey! Cute dog!”
Ryder wanted to share the love and show his appreciation to the owners of cute dogs, so he added a feature for when he is out of the house. With the megaphone poking out of a window, the Raspberry Pi does its dog-detecting as usual, but instead of alerting Ryder, it announces: “I like your dog” when a canine is walked past.
When has a megaphone ever NOT made a project better?
Also, we’d like to learn more about this ‘Heather’ who apparently once scaled a six-foot fence to pet a dog and for whom Ryder built this. Ryder, spill the story in the comments!
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