Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam!
Three heroes, sworn to brotherhood in the face of tyranny, rally support for the trials ahead. Scenting opportunity, warlords from China’s great families follow suit, forming a fragile coalition in a bid to challenge Dong Zhuo’s remorseless rule. Will they triumph against the tyrant, or will personal ambition shatter their already crumbling alliance and drive them to supremacy?
Website: LINK
Hey folks! Rob from The MagPi here with the good news that a brand new issue is out today, with a slightly new look. The MagPi 74 shows you how to build a Pi‑powered laptop, and gives tips on how to recycle an old laptop to use with Pi.
The laptop is not spooky, but the Halloween projects definitely are
We’ve got a pretty simple, tiny laptop build that you can follow along with, which will easily slip into your pocket once it’s completed. We also cover the basic Raspberry Pi Desktop experience, in case you fancy installing the x86 version to bring new life to an old laptop.
I’m also very happy to announce that The MagPi Halloween projects feature is back this year! Put together by yours truly, Haunted Halloween Hacks should get you in the mood for the spookiest time of the year. October is the only month of the year that I’m allowed to make puns, so prepare yourself for some ghastly groaners.
Rob has unleashed his awful alliteration skills this issue, with some putrid puns
On top of all that, you can find more fantastic guides on making games in Python and in C/C++, along with our brand new Quickstart guide, a review of the latest Picade, and more inspiring projects than you can shake a Pi Zero at.
Qwerty the fish keeps this garden growing
Start making a Space Invaders clone with Pygame!
You can get The MagPi 74 today from WHSmith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, head over to your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center in the next few days for a print copy. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS apps. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
Want to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the magazine? You can now take out a monthly £5 subscription to the magazine, effectively creating a rolling pre‑order system that saves you money on each issue.
You can also take out a twelve-month print subscription and get a Pi Zero W plus case and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.
Issue 75 is next month, and we’re planning to showcase 75 amazing Raspberry Pi projects! We need your help to vote for the top 50, so please head to the voting page and choose your favourite project. Click on a project name to cast your vote for that project.
That’s it for now! Oh, and if you make any Raspberry Pi Halloween projects this year, send them to us on Twitter or via email.
Website: LINK
Taphouse VR is Now Available on Steam!
In Taphouse VR, you are the bartender! Run your own taphouse, give drunk dwarves their fill of delicious ale or drench the bunch by mixing delicious cocktails! Everything around the counter is yours to mess with – including your paying customers. Website: LINK
Today’s Deal: Save 67% on SHENZHEN I/O!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time Website: LINK
Niffelheim is Now Available on Steam!
Your avatar is a brave warrior who has fallen in battle. But instead of finding well-deserved peace in Asgard, his soul is trapped in the harsh world of Niffelheim. Survive in this hostile world, ransack the neighboring lands, explore dangerous dungeons and find your way to Valhalla. Website: LINK
Life is Strange 2 is Now Available on Steam!
Two brothers Sean and Daniel Diaz, are forced to run away from home after a tragic incident in Seattle. In fear of the police, Sean & Daniel head to Mexico while attempting to conceal a sudden & mysterious supernatural power. Website: LINK
Ultimately, the team decided to build their mock-ups in VR, and it had a profound effect on their entire design process. Bell worked with Sector 5 Digital (S5D), an innovative 3D design and production agency, to help design and sketch the initial model, then create the aircraft in 3D using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. The model was then transferred into Unity (a real-time game engine) so the design could be experienced and modified in VR on HTC VIVE.
Shots of interiors, design, mock up, and passengers at Dallas Convention Center
Rather than having to start with a small-scale model for the initial prototyping, the VIVE enabled Bell’s engineers and test pilots to visualize a full-scale model right from the very beginning. The test pilots could then experience the aircraft as if they were inside an actual model, allowing them to provide faster and more specific feedback.
Website: LINK
For our birthday this year, we coordinated over 100 community-led Raspberry Jam events around the globe. In a few months’ time, Raspberry Pi will be seven years old – and to celebrate we’re hosting another Big Birthday Weekend, which takes place all over the world on 2-3 March 2019.
Raspberry Pi: aged six and a half
Last year’s event was a lot of fun! We sent out starter kits and extra birthday goodies to participating Jams, and even put together a tweeting Raspberry Pi photobooth for people to set up to share their events.
With the incredible support of the Raspberry Pi community, we were able to celebrate our sixth birthday in 40 countries, covering six continents – that is, every continent except Antarctica! Members of the Raspberry Pi Foundation team joined in with events in the UK, in California, across Europe, and elsewhere, despite unexpected UK snow storms.
Raspberry Jam Big Birthday Weekend 2018
To celebrate the Raspberry Pi’s sixth birthday, we coordinated Raspberry Jams all over the world to take place over the Raspberry Jam Big Birthday Weekend, 3-4 March 2018. A massive thank you to everyone who ran an event and attended.
For 2019, we’re hoping to go even bigger, and this is where you come in.
If you’d like to run an event for our Big Birthday Weekend, please head over to the Big Birthday Weekend 2019 page and join our newsletter. That’s where we’ll provide updates on what’s going on and what you need to do to join in.
If this sounds like it might be your kind of thing, but you’ve never done it before, there’s plenty of time to get off to a gentle start and run a Jam before 2018 is out. When you join the newsletter, we’ll invite you to our Jam maker Slack community, where you can get support from us and from wonderful Jam makers all around the world. They have lots of help and advice to offer people who are just starting out with their first Jam, and you’ll be well rehearsed by the time the birthday weekend comes around.
As always, there will be cake. And if you can beat this edible Raspberry Pi from earlier this year, you have our utmost respect.
Start by downloading the Raspberry Jam Guidebook and checking out the Jam activity resources, branding pack, and more on our Jam page. And as ever, you can support the Raspberry Pi community online by following #RJam on Twitter.
Website: LINK
EXAPUNKS: TEC Redshift Player is Now Available on Steam!
The Redshift is a fictional handheld game console in the universe of the puzzle programming game EXAPUNKS. This player will allow you to play Redshift games made by other EXAPUNKS players. Website: LINK
Save 25% on Ultimate Chicken Horse during this week’s Midweek Madness*!
*Offer ends Thursday at 4PM Pacific Time Website: LINK
Valkyria Chronicles 4 is Now Available on Steam!
A Continent Engulfed in the Bitter Flames of War! Commander Claude Wallace and his childhood friends set out to fight in a desperate war, but bone-chilling blizzards, waves of imperial soldiers, and the godlike powers of the Valkyria stand between them and victory. Website: LINK
The moment we saw Sarah Spencer‘s knitted Stargazing tapestry, we knew we needed to know more. A couple of emails later, and here’s Sarah with a guest blog post telling you all you need to know about her hacking adventure with a 1980s knitting machine and a Raspberry Pi.
Knitting Printer! (slowest speed)
Printing a scarf on a Brother KM950i knitting machine from the 1980’s. To do this I have a Brother Motor arm to push the carriage back and forth and a homemade colour changer that automatically selects the colour on the left (the white and purple device with the LED).
Raspberry Pi: what’s there not to like? It’s powerful, compact, and oh so affordable! I used one as a portable media box attached to a pico projector for years. Setting one up as a media box is one of the most popular uses for them, but there’s so much more you can do.
Cue a 1980s Brother domestic knitting machine. Yep, you read that right. A knitting machine – to knit jumpers, hats, scarves, you name it. They don’t make domestic knitting machines any more, so a machine from the 1980s is about as modern as you can get. It comes with an onboard scanner to scan knitting patterns and a floppy drive port to back up your scans to an old floppy disk. Aah, the eighties – what a time to be alive!
But this is an article about Raspberry Pi, right? So what does a 30-year-old knitting machine have to do with that? Well, I hacked my domestic knitting machine and turned it into a network printer with the help of a Raspberry Pi. By using a floppy drive emulator written in Python and a web interface, I can send an image to the Raspberry Pi over the network, preview it in a knitting grid, and tell it to send the knitting pattern to the knitting machine via the floppy drive port.
I call this set-up OctoKnit in honour of a more famous and widely used tool, OctoPrint for 3D printers, another popular application for Raspberry Pi.
I’ve made the OctoKnit web interface open source. You can find it on GitHub.
This project has been in the works for several years, and there’s been a few modifications to the knitting machine over that time. With the addition of a motor arm and an automatic colour changer, my knitting is getting very close to being hands-free. Here’s a photo of the knitting machine today, although the Raspberry Pi is hiding behind the machine in this shot:
I’ve specialised in knitting multicolour work using a double-layered technique called double Jacquard, which requires two beds of needles. Hence the reason the machine has doubled in size from when I first started.
I made a thing that can make things, so I need to make something with it, right? Here are a few custom orders I’ve completed through my Etsy store:
However, none of my previous works quite compares to my latest piece, Stargazing: a knitted tapestry. Knitted in seven panels stitched together by hand, the pattern on the Raspberry Pi is 21 times bigger than the memory available on the vintage knitting machine, so it’s knitted in 21 separate but seamless file transfers. It took over 100 hours of work and weighs 15kg.
Stargazing is a celestial map of the night sky, featuring all 88 constellations across both Northern and Southern hemispheres. The line through the center is the Earth’s equator, projected out into space, with the sun, moon and planets of our solar system featured along it. The grey cloud is a representation of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Heart of Pluto on Twitter
Happy 6pm, Fri 31st Aug 2018 😊 The tapestry is installed and the planets in the sky have now aligned with those in the knitting
When I first picked up a Raspberry Pi and turned it over in my hand, marvelling at the computing power in such a small, affordable unit, I never imagined in my wildest dreams what I’d end up doing with it.
What will you do with your Raspberry Pi?
Website: LINK
Today we’re announcing that for the second year in a row, and in conjunction with the second anniversary of Viveport, we are giving developers with a title in Viveport Subscription 100% of their subscription revenue until the end of 2018.
Viveport Subscription allows every subscriber to pick up to 5 titles a month to experience. This means if a Viveport Subscription member picks a developer’s title, unlike the normal 70% of revenues (with Viveport receiving 30%), developers will get the full 100% of their owed revenue for that month.
The second year of Viveport Subscription has seen it grow dramatically, expanding to 500 titles and 5 x the total number of subscribers. Support for Oculus Rift was also added, along with a partnership with Amazon. Oculus Rift compatibility has effectively doubled potential audience reach, as well as introducing Rift owners to the benefits of Viveport Subscription. In addition, Amazon now sells Viveport apps, with new prospective customers being displayed Viveport apps as they purchase compatible hardware.
It’s simple to take advantage of this 100% rev share opportunity.
What next?
Whether you already have a title in Viveport Subscription or you’re adding an existing one, now is a great time to promote that fact, to ensure you get as many subscribers as possible experiencing your title. Make sure you tag Viveport on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram when linking to your title. We’re especially interested in hearing from you if you’ve updated your title with any major changes.
Thanks for being with us as we celebrate the second anniversary of Viveport!
Website: LINK
The Vive Wireless Adapter launches today, freeing Vive owners from the tether back to the PC — experiencing the full potential of premium VR. Compatible with both the Vive and Vive Pro, customers in the US can now purchase the adapter on Vive.com and other retailers where Vive is sold.
The Vive Wireless Adapter retails at $299 [USD] while the Vive Pro compatibility pack can be purchased for $60 [USD]. Every Vive Wireless Adapter purchase includes two months of Viveport Subscription, offering access to 500 titles.
Wireless VR grants even deeper immersion into the virtual world as all restrictions fade away. Whether you’re bobbing and weaving in Knockout League, pulling off the perfect backhand in Virtual Sports or dodging enemy fire, the Vive Wireless Adapter will give you the freedom of movement to experience VR at its fullest.
The Vive Wireless Adapter meets the rigorous demands of performance, latency and image quality for premium VR. With hours of battery life, the Vive Wireless Adapter will power VR sessions for over two hours with the included battery.
Still debating if you should go wireless? The Vive Wireless Adapter was shown at gaming and VR events this summer (including Gamescom where it won “Best Hardware”), check out what these early reviewers had to say:
Easy to install, you can start to experience the potential of wireless VR in just minutes after opening the box. Just install the PCI-e card and attach a sensor from the PC that broadcasts to and from the new wireless Vive headset up to 6 meters from the included sensor.
Website: LINK
As the world gets ready to celebrate International Translation Day on 30 September, we want to say thank you to our amazing community of volunteer translators. This talented bunch work very hard so that people around the world can learn digital making and computing in their native languages.
Can you help us translate our content?
If you speak an additional language to English, volunteering as a translator is an easy way to make a big difference.
The #RPiTranslate community is growing every day, and at the moment we have around 370 volunteers. They are translating our learning projects into 50 languages – everything from Afrikaans, to Tamil, to Scots Gaelic! Projects in 26 of those languages are already available on the Raspberry Pi learning projects website, and we continually add more.
Our translators are all volunteers, and they come from various walks of life. They are students and professionals, translators and coders, young and retired, already passionate about our mission or completely new to it.
Abdulaziz is a language coordinator for the Arabic language team. He is finishing his doctoral research at the University of Toledo in the US, and will soon start working as an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. He translates for us because he believes our educational resources are great and he’d love to see them used by Arabic speakers of all ages.
Wojtek volunteers at a Code Club in Poland, and helps us translate our projects into Polish because he thinks translations are crucial for learning. When children can access lessons in their native language, they truly understand programming concepts, and that empowers them to experiment and create more.
Cor is the main force behind all of our Dutch projects. He is a retired simulator designer and developer for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, and volunteers at a hackerspace in the Netherlands. While teaching young people coding and robotics, he realised how difficult it is for them to learn all of this in English. He decided to translate for us to change that.
Silvia started volunteering for us when she was studying for a degree in translation. She joined us to gain some real-life experience in translation and localisation, but quickly found herself immersed in our amazing community and became passionate about Raspberry Pi’s mission. She is still supporting us now, even though she has finished her degree and is working full-time.
Sanneke is a digital literacy consultant and librarian at Bibliotheek Kennemerwaard in the Netherlands. She runs five Dojos in the area where her library is based. Sanneke translates because it helps children who want to learn to code. English is taught from quite an early age at primary schools in the Netherlands, but having learning resources in Dutch is particularly helpful for young children.
All of these volunteers bring with them a unique set of skills and experiences. They make the #RPiTranslate community an amazing, diverse, successful team.
Raspberry Pi translators: we salute every single one of you. We couldn’t do what we do without you!
Anyone can join this amazing group of people in their translation efforts. It’s really easy to get involved: you don’t need any experience of translation or coding, and you can choose how much time you want to commit.
Visit our translation page to find out more, or join one of our live Q&A sessions this week to ask our translation manager and language coordinators anything you’d like:
Happy translation week!
Special thanks to the Atlassian Foundation and MIT Solve for their continued support in developing our translation community.
Website: LINK
Today’s Deal: Save 30% on Production Line : Car factory simulation!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Wednesday at 10AM Pacific Time Website: LINK
Today’s Deal: Save 35% on Ash of Gods: Redemption!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time Website: LINK
Save up to 85% on Focus Home Interactive titles during the Focus Home Interactive Publisher Weekend*! Including hits like Vampyr, Spintires: MudRunner, and Farming Simulator 17.
*Discounts until 10am Pacific on Monday September 24th.
Website: LINK
Today’s Deal: Save 80% on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Sunday at 10AM Pacific Time Website: LINK
There is always a flurry of activity at the start of the new academic year, and we are getting in on the action: this autumn and winter, we’ll be launching four new online courses! They are completely free and aim to give educators a solid grounding in the concepts and practical applications of computing.
I caught up with course developers Marc, Caitlyn, James, and Martin to find out what they have in store for you.
Dan Fisher: Hi everyone! First off, can you give me a rundown of what your courses are called and what your motivation was for creating them?
Martin O’Hanlon: Sure! So my course is called Programming 101: An Introduction to Python for Educators. We wanted to create an ‘introduction to programming’ course that anyone could follow, ensuring that learners get to understand concepts as well as practice coding. They will leave with a really good understanding of why programming is so useful, and of how it works.
James Robinson: Then, as a follow-up to this and many other beginner online programming courses, we will be releasing Programming 102: Think Like A Computer Scientist. A lot of courses spend time on the syntax and core elements of a language, without much focus on how to plan and construct a program. We feel the skills involved in understanding and breaking down a problem, before representing it in code, are fundamental to computer science. My course is therefore designed to give you the opportunity to explore these problem-solving skills while extending your knowledge of programming.
Marc Scott: My How Computers Work: Demystifying Computation course fills in the gaps in people’s knowledge about these amazing lumps of silicon and plastic. Computers are very abstract machines. Most people understand that computers can run large, complicated programs, but few people understand how computers are able to perform even the simplest of operations like counting or adding two numbers together. How Computers Work shows people how computers use simple components such as transistors to do incredible things.
Caitlyn Merry: My course is called Bringing Data to Life: Data Representation with Digital Media. Data representation is a huge part of the GCSE Computer Science curriculum, and we wanted to present some of the more theoretical parts of the subject in a fun, practical, and engaging way. And data is everywhere — it is such an important topic nowadays, with real-world impact, so we’re making sure the course is also useful for anyone else who wants to learn about data through the lens of creative media.
DF: Awesome! So who are the courses for?
MOH: Programming 101 is for anyone who wants to learn how to program in Python and gain an understanding for the concepts of computer programming.
JR: Programming 102 is for beginners who have already tackled some programming basics and have some experience in writing text-based programs.
CM: Bringing Data to Life is great if you want to understand how computers turn data into digital media: text, sound, video, and images — for example, photos on your smartphone.
MS: And How Computers Work is for anyone who is interested in learning how computers work. [laughter from the group]
DF: Short and to the point as ever, Marc.
MS: Okay, if you want a sensible answer, it would most help Computer Science teachers at secondary or high school level get to grips with the fundamentals and architecture.
DF: And what will they be doing in your courses, in practical terms?
MOH: Programming 101 will show you how to set up your computer for Python programming and then how to create Python programs! You’ll learn about the basic programming concepts of sequencing, selection, and repetition, and about how to use variables, input, output, ifs, lists, loops, functions, and more.
JR: Programming 102 discusses the importance of algorithms and their applications, and shows you how to plan and implement your own algorithms and reflect on their efficiency. Throughout the course, you’ll be using functions to structure your code and make your algorithms more versatile.
MS: In How Computers Work, learners will find out some of the historical origins of computers and programming, how computers work with ones and zeros, how logic gates can be used to perform calculations, and about the basic internals of the CPU, the central processing unit.
CM: In my Bringing Data to Life course, you’ll learn how text, images, and sound data is represented and stored by computers, but you’ll also be doing your own media computation: creating your own code and programs to manipulate existing text, images, and data!
DF: Cool! So what will learners end up taking away from your courses?
MOH: When you have completed the Programming 101 course, you’ll be able to create your own computer programs using Python, educate others in the fundamental concepts of computer programming, and take your learning further to understand more advanced concepts.
JR: After Programming 102, you’ll be able to plan and create structured and versatile programs and make use of more programming concepts including functions and dictionaries.
MS: From my course, you’ll get a solid grounding in how computers actually function, and an appreciation for the underlying simplicity behind complex computing architectures and programs.
At their core, computers works with simple components, e.g. relays like this.
CM: The take-away from mine will be an understanding of how computers present to you all the media you view on your phone, screens, etc., and you’ll gain some new skills to manipulate and change what you see and hear through computers.
DF: And how much would learners need to know before they start?
MOH: Programming 101 is suitable for complete beginners with no prior knowledge.
MS: The same goes for How Computers Work.
JR: For Programming 102, you’ll need to have already tackled some programming basics and have a little experience of writing text-based programs, but generally speaking, the courses are for beginner-level learners who are looking for a place to start.
CM: You’d just need a basic understanding of Python for Bringing Data to Life. Taking Programming 101 would be enough!
DF: That’s great, folks! Thanks for talking to me.
Programming 101 and How Computers Work will both begin running in October. Sign up for them today by visiting the Raspberry Pi Foundation page on FutureLearn.
Programming 101 and How Computers Work will both begin running in October. Sign up for them today by visiting the Raspberry Pi Foundation page on FutureLearn.
Programming 102 and Bringing Data to Life will launch this winter. Sign up for our education newsletter Raspberry Pi LEARN to hear from us when they’re out!
Got a question you’d like to ask our online course developers? Post your comment below.
Website: LINK
Save 67% on Rising Storm 2: Vietnam as part of this week’s Weekend Deal*!
Also, check out the newly released Multiplayer Campaign and Maps created by the community!
*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time Website: LINK
