Kategorie: PC

“Raspberry Pi is a powerful tool that has already found its place in the video game community with RetroPie. We wanted to do the same and create new, fun games with the Raspberry Pi,” explains Romain Fontaine. When the team sat down to decide on the theme and title for their pinball machine, it became clear they were all fond of games from the 1980s era. Their retro game, The Mafia, “brings the player back to Chicago and the 1930s Prohibition Era with gangsters, casinos, and of course, a bank to rob!”

Pi-eyed

Team Pinball originally designed their game for Raspberry Pi 2, noting its compact size and price and that it had “everything we needed”, including being able to output audio, drive the screen, and control the machine through its GPIO,” says Romain. Having been updated and upgraded in the five years since Mafia Pinball launched to some acclaim in the pinball enthusiast arena, The Mafia is now based on a Raspberry Pi 3 that runs game code on top of a modified Linux image optimised for fast boot and low latency. There are two separate sets of software. One runs the game logic that reads the switches located in the machine and drives the solenoids and light show; the other plays music and audio effects, and also renders the score and animations on the LCD screen.

Starting from scratch

Team Pinball designed the game and cabinet themselves, basing it on their own sketches, cutting playfields, wiring harnesses, and the electronic controller. The game’s pinball layout is their own design too, while most of the pinball-specific parts, such as mechanisms, are standard and can be bought on pinball websites. As far as possible, parts were locally sourced: the wooden cabinet was made by a Welsh company, with printing and glass panels also done in Wales. “Our office is only 30 minutes away from Raspberry Pi’s factory,” says Romain, so they can also count that as a locally sourced part.

Team Pinball designed their own controller board, called Rboard, specifically for Raspberry Pi that is compatible with direct switches, as well as a switch matrix with up to 100 switch inputs. “It can drive more than 200 LEDs and 48 solenoids. This is more than previous pinball controllers such as the WPC, while using one tenth of the board space thanks to Raspberry Pi,” says Romain. “Several revisions” to the Rboard added a watchdog circuit to protect the hardware, capacitors, “and a regulator to maintain a perfect 5 V for Raspberry Pi.” The latest version includes a DAC for improved audio quality. Video needed to be in H.264 format, so they had to find alternative rendering techniques.

Manufacturing was measured in a combination of metric for bespoke parts and imperial for standard pinball parts, which added to the challenge – not least because some of the manufacturers had never worked on a pinball machine before. When the 32-tonne lorry delivering everything to Team Pinball’s HQ arrived, turning down the narrow Welsh lane was a feat too far, so Romain and his colleagues had to carry the cabinets for the last part of their journey in the pouring rain. Nonetheless, everything was assembled and comprehensively checked before Mafia Pinball eventually made its much-anticipated debut.

The game has been a big hit in the pinball community, gaining numerous plaudits and orders. Their machines have shipped globally, to USA, Canada, Sweden, France, Austria, and even Australia. A Canadian company also uses the Team Pinball system for their game design. Better yet, Romain says Team Pinball “absolutely!” has more pinball machines in the pipeline. “More pinball projects, all powered with Raspberry Pi, CM4, and Raspberry Pi Pico!”

Pico power

While most modern digital cameras have light meters built-in, many older cameras don’t have this luxury, and the price of some light meters can be prohibitive. Enter Martin Spendiff and Vanessa Bradley, two familiar makers who present their latest Pico-based project: Photon, a very budget-friendly take on this handy tool. Always keen to use old tech whenever possible, and aware of a revival using analogue film, the pair show off their make in this slick YouTube video.

The duo felt that “the big brand light meters seemed too expensive for what they actually are.” Also, this is a potential money-saver if you use film in your camera, as “film is still pretty expensive, so something that means more consistent images is really useful.” Furthermore, Martin is now very conscious that, “after using Picos for a while, you look at things and think ‘I could build that’!”

Photon contains a light sensor which reads the light level and then “does a little bit of calculation to make it able to turn that into the required camera settings. Pico is doing all the hard work with a bit of MicroPython that we put on GitHub,” explains Martin. The code was “borrowed from some other projects (coffee grinder augmentation and the burger cooker); it isn’t very complicated code, so it was pretty easy to cobble together.”

Proof of the pudding

To make sure that Photon was performing as it should, a consistency check was done against much more expensive counterparts, and the results were hugely encouraging. So much so that Martin admits being surprised: “When I saw that people were saying they were building them, I nervously went back and rechecked against a couple of expensive meters and a grey card and a camera… it was accurate over a wide range of light levels. It was a relief!

“The feedback has largely been from the analogue film community, and positive,” he continues. “I think the overlap between makers and keen photographers is bigger than we anticipated.” Martin alludes to a famous photography expression, attributed to the New York photographer Weegee, which is ‘f/8 and be there’, the underlying gist of which is: take the opportunity for a great picture, but don’t worry too much about technique, using a basic aperture setting. “The incident meter is a good way to simplify the process of getting a good exposure. My photos aren’t better, but they are definitely more consistent,” affirms Martin.

Regular readers of The MagPi will remember other Veeb projects we’ve featured, and Martin thinks he may now want to go back and “refactor” some of those soon. “There have been lots of times where we learned things and thought… we should have done X like that,” and Photon might be a project that gets some future refactoring once more GitHub feedback is received. You can find their collection of superbly put together and illuminative videos on Veeb’s YouTube page.

When you first power on the Galactic Unicorn, via the supplied short micro-USB cable, it immediately springs into life with Pimoroni’s MicroPython firmware and code examples pre-installed, so there’s no need to flash it. Text on the display invites you to press the A, B, C, or D button to launch a different graphical demo.

Whichever button you select, you’re sure to be impressed. There’s a cool (or rather warm) burning flames effect, an eighties supercomputer (random pixels), a cycling rainbow, and a nostalgia computer prompt. What you notice straight away is how these pixels are large and bright (dazzling at the maximum level) – and there’s no sign of flicker, even if you film the display running. The Pico W RP2040’s PIO state machines are used to drive the LEDs at around 300 fps at 14-bit resolution, while gamma correction is applied to image data.

Button controls

Those four tiny tactile buttons are situated on the rear, along with five others on the opposite side to sleep the display, adjust the brightness, and alter the volume from the mini 1 W speaker on the rear. They’re also labelled on the front of the board for easy reference so you can reach behind to press them. In addition, there’s a handy reset button on the rear to reboot the device.

Also on the back, along with some nifty silkscreen artwork, you’ll find an optional battery connector (for up to 5.5 V) and a couple of Qwiic/STEMMA ports (JST-SH) for connecting breakouts such as sensors. The Galactic Unicorn even has one sensor built-in: a phototransistor at the right-hand edge of the front panel to detect light levels – which could be useful for adjusting the display brightness automatically.

While the LEDs have some built-in diffusion, you may want to add your own diffuser panel, in which case the mounting holes should come in useful. Example DXF files are supplied on the product page. To stand the board vertically, at a slight angle, two metal legs are supplied and screw into any of four slightly larger holes in the board edge.

Pixel programming

Programming the Galactic Unicorn should prove relatively easy in MicroPython. Several further code examples are supplied on the GitHub repo. These include a fairly convincing, procedurally generated lava lamp and an easily adaptable scrolling text demo. Graphics and text are generated using the PicoGraphics library – used for several of Pimoroni’s displays, it offers rich functionality including shapes, sprites, and a selection of fonts. Other functions are explained in the Galactic Unicorn reference guide.

There are a few examples that make use of Pico W’s wireless connectivity too. Just pop your Wi-Fi network details into the WIFI_CONFIG.py file to get connected. A digital clock demo fetches the live time from an NTP server; a Cheerlights history slowly builds up coloured pixels, one every five minutes; while a Galactic paint program enables you to draw on the display in real-time from another device via a web server hosted by Pico W – very cool indeed!

With a little creativity, there’s the potential to use the Galactic Unicorn for a wide range of projects, including wireless ones such as a live weather dashboard or scrolling RSS feed.

Verdict

9/10

Its elongated shape may not suit all projects, but this is one dazzling display that makes uses of Pico W’s power to create impressive animated effects at a super high frame rate.

Specs
Display: 53×11 matrix of RGB LEDs (583 in total)
Features: Pico W on board, 10 × push-buttons, mono I2S amp and 1W speaker, 2 × Qwiic/STEMMA ports, battery connector, 2 × metal legs
Dimensions: 331 × 79 mm

Similar things can be said about text generators like ChatGPT. We’ve seen people use it to create a jumping on point for simple Python code, which is an interesting use of open-source scripts. However, for actual text… well, the best way I’ve seen it described is ‘confidently wrong’. For very basic stuff, you might get something competent, but anything else and it’s better to get a person involved.

Computer vision

Over the years, we’ve made great use of OpenCV in many Raspberry Pi projects – it’s a machine learning tool that processes image data to help make decisions. It’s used in robotics a lot with a Raspberry Pi Camera Module, with the late, great Formula Pi robots doing stellar work with it as they zipped around.

This use of AI is great. It’s doing something people can sort of do, but if you were doing these tasks it would be a bit menial. And the AI can do it a lot faster.

I’ve also seen people use image recognition technology with Raspberry Pi to create a Pokédex from the Pokémon anime – a device that recognises the eponymous monsters – and simply a ‘magic wand’ that identifies what it’s being pointed at. Both work to varying degrees of success. However, humans only know a limited amount of knowledge too.

Ethical future

We’re currently at a tipping point with a lot of AI tech. It’s getting very interesting and very powerful, but the technology should not be replacing human expression – especially when it’s copying other humans’ expressions without any context. The way it’s been used in computer vision is a good template for the future – as an aid and not a pseudo-replacement. Art is important expression after all.

With the new Camera Module 3 and its laundry list of new features, I can only imagine what we’ll be able to do with it that a person cannot.

This means if you really want to do some light Star Trek roleplay, you can have several screens in one room which have some degree of connectivity – such as displaying a red alert.

“After that, I connected LEDs to the back of my monitor and they would pulse red if the status was ‘red alert’,” James continues. “I connected a Raspberry Pi Sense HAT to the Flask server, so room weather data would be sent to the PiRitos system. Finally, for a bit of fun, I connected a Pico to the server and it transmitted its own internal temp sensor reading to the Flask server. This was also sent to all the connected clients.”

Isolinear processing

The project itself started solely as Ritos in the browser but, after seeing it in action, James asked meWho Rob if he could have the source code to make PiRitos. He used it as an excuse to learn Flask and Socket.IO, as he reckons he learns best via a project.

“meWho Rob decided to help me for a few weeks, and we managed to work together to open some of the JS functions and attached the Socket.IO code,” James explains. “After that, it was a simple case of having Flask and Socket.IO communicate to the connected clients. Once communication between server and client was working, it was super-easy to extend to physical hardware like LEDs and sensors.”

Second contact

The result is fantastic – we mentioned it in our previous issue after it got shared far and wide on social media, with many Raspberry Pi and Star Trek fans getting excited by the project.

“At the moment, I don’t think I have any plans to do anything more with the PiRitos system,” James admits. “It’s been a bit of fun and a great learning experience, but it would take a lot of work to get this into something more useful. Personally, I want to tinker more with connecting Raspberry Pi with other smart services like turning on/off smart plugs and lights. This could go into PiRitos at some point. Or the reverse, getting a voice assistant, like Alexa, to set the red alert status would be awesome, but [we] don’t have any road map for that… I know [meWho Rob is] moving on to make a LCARS site based off the Picard series, and maybe we can work on getting that to also work with Raspberry Pi!”

Everything you need to know about the new 12-megapixel camera module with HDR and lightning-fast autofocus. Our feature is packed with starter advice, engineering insights and project ideas.

Create smart lights

Use Raspberry Pi and Pico to light up your home. This feature covers NeoPixels, motion-sensing lights, and how to control HUE lights with Raspberry Pi. Get inspired by some of the best light show projects around.

Build a Star Trek-style computer

Discover how PiRitos has been used by one maker to lovingly recreate the LCARS computer from Star Trek. The computer is run from a Raspberry Pi server and displays on multiple screens around one maker’s home.

A Raspberry Pi Exoskeleton

Learn about a Standford University program using Raspberry Pi to build a groundbreaking walking aid. This exoskeleton is made from carbon fibre and aluminium and uses machine learning to adapt to its user.

Create a toy Chatter Box

Make use of the new Raspberry Pi Audio boards to build a device that records short audio clips and plays them back.

Save 35% off the cover price with a subscription to The MagPi magazine. UK subscribers get three issues for just £10 and a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico W, then pay £30 every six issues. You’ll save money and get a regular supply of in-depth reviews, features, guides and other Raspberry Pi enthusiast goodness delivered directly to your door every month.

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Fiber OpticMatrix Display

Using LEDs such as NeoPixels is a pretty easy thing to do – we’ve covered them extensively in issues 122 and 123 with light-up vacuum cleaners and Christmas tree lights. This project (which we covered in issue 118) goes further, using optic fibres connected to an LED board to create beautiful glowing effects, as text and images are pushed through them to a ‘screen’. It’s mesmerising in motion, and is truly a conversation starter. It’s a little time-consuming though – there are about 250 optic fibres hooked between the LEDs, and the display and programming them is a little different than a standard uniform display. At least you’ll have a head start on the code from maker elliotmade.

magpi.cc/fomatrix

Light painting

Light painting is a bit of a trick – you’re not actually painting with light, you’re just using maths and a long exposure time to create something that only exists in camera. However, it is an exceptionally cool existence. You can do it with bikes with lit-up spokes, special LED strips, and much more to make incredible stuff.

magpi.cc/lightpainting

Pico Portal Music Box

Even after 15 years, Portal’s Still Alive song is still well remembered and this project will make sure you never forget it. Pico can actually play MP3 files, and maker thisoldgeek wanted to give it a more antique music box vibe, so he created one in the style of a music box MIDI sound. It’s still an MP3 though!

He reckons it takes a couple of hours to put together, with a simple 3D-printed box and minimal amount of soldering and wiring required. It even includes lights, which fade in and out for a great effect.

Pico Audio Pack

Instead of soldering a speaker to your Pico, this add-on allows you to have high-quality audio output from Pico through 3.5 mm jacks. It connects to Pico like a HAT on Raspberry Pi. You can even choose to manually amplify each output. Grab one here.

Pico Piano

This clever project uses a copper-plated board with piano keys etched into them and a series of resistors to create variable currents at each key. The piano player then uses a jumper cable hooked up to a Pico which senses the different current values and plays a note based on it.

This use of resistors would be very difficult to do on Raspberry Pi without other components. If you don’t have access to copper boards and etching solutions, you can use a perf board as well to create a piano.

MIDI controller

There are a couple of great DIY MIDI controller projects for Pico – we quite like the MIDI Fighter that uses arcade buttons – however, if you just want to experiment with code and don’t want to do too much physical building, Keybow 2040 from Pimoroni is a great customisable keyboard that can be used as a MIDI controller with some coding. Get it here.

Lo-Fi Orchestra

This massive orchestra is made up of various microcontrollers and microcomputers, and nearly every week we get to hear something new from it. We quite like the version of Gustav Holst’s The Planets suite composed on it. You can find out how it works with the very thorough blog.

The four relays take up most of the board and handle conversion and control for four mains-powered devices. We highly suggest getting some kind of case for the board as there are solder points on the underside of the PCB. These relays are controlled via an optoisolator which does improve the safety of the relays and, despite there being four squeezed onto the board, the screw terminals have a decent amount of space between them. Still – caution is recommended with this, like any other relay.

Connecting to things

With a series of I2c and standard component pins, you can add a little extra control to the board that is all programmed using the classic Arduino IDE. As it’s all Wi-Fi connected, having it talk to a Raspberry Pi or Pico W is a matter of making sure it’s looking for the right thing. Like an Arduino board, a micro USB port is used to power and connect to it for programming, which also supports various smart home systems for voice control via RelayFi.

It’s a fairly solid build for such a relatively cheap board, and the ease of coding helps with its appeal as well.

Verdict

7/10 A solid IoT board with easy programming functions that can interact with Raspberry Pi just fine.

Specs

Microcontroller: ESP32
Connectors: Relays × 4, 5 × 3 component pins, I2c breakout, USB micro data port
Radio: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, BLE

For 2022, I decided to make some goals and rough plans instead of stumbling into projects like I have in the past – and also promising to go a bit easier on myself if I didn’t achieve them all.

Still stumbling

One thing I’m always proud of is the work we do on The MagPi. I’m especially happy when I get to make something cool and talk about what I’ve learnt in the pages of the mag – this year, in particular, three projects stand out to me.

Firstly, there were the quiz button boxes. After years of saying I’d make it, I finally created custom buzzers with programmable sounds and the ability to find out who pressed buttons in what order. I’ve made some modifications since I put the tutorial in the mag and, at some point, I’ll update the code on the GitHub as well.

Otherwise, this year I got back to making cosplay props with the Poltergust G-00 I made with help from, 3D printing wizard and Raspberry Pi Maker in Residence, Toby Roberts. It was a bit easier than last time when I had to gut a real vacuum cleaner, and I learned a lot about using NeoPixels with Pico, which I then applied to some excellent Christmas lights that are shortly going up on my tree.

Satisfaction guaranteed

Other things I planned for the year – mostly personal stuff like make silly videos and write more fiction – I wasn’t always able to get to, but thankfully I did enough to be proud of. Maybe I also was able to be kinder to myself in the process as well!

Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic 2023. I’ll see you there.

2. Choose interpreter

Thonny is normally used to write programs that run on the same computer you’re using Thonny on; to switch to writing programs on your Raspberry Pi Pico, you’ll need to choose a new Python interpreter. Look at the bottom-right of the Thonny window for the word ‘Python’ followed by a version number: that’s your current interpreter.

Click ‘Python’ and look through the list that appears for ‘MicroPython (Raspberry Pi Pico)’ – or, if you’re running an older version of Thonny, ‘MicroPython (generic)’.

3. Hello World

Writing a program for your Raspberry Pi Pico is a lot like writing a program for your Raspberry Pi. You can type commands in the Shell area at the bottom of the window to have them immediately executed, or you can write a program in the main part of the window to run on-demand.

Click in the Shell area, next to the >>>> symbols, and type:

print("Hello, World!")

When you press ENTER at the end of the line, you’ll see your Raspberry Pi Pico respond.

You are now ready to start writing your MicroPython code in the main window. Click Run to start the program on Raspberry Pi Pico. Take a read of our book, Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico if you want to learn more about Pico programming.

Top tip: Update Thonny

If you don’t see ‘MicroPython (Raspberry Pi Pico)’ in the interpreter list, you’ll need to update Thonny. Open a Terminal window and type:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

2. Switch to MicroPython

Raspberry Pi Pico is set up, by default, for use with the C/C++ Software Development Kit (SDK). The C/C++ SDK is an extremely flexible and powerful way to interact with your Raspberry Pi Pico. However, there’s a more beginner-friendly method: MicroPython.

Hold down the small button on your Raspberry Pi Pico marked ‘BOOTSEL’ and connect Pico to your computer using the USB cable. (We are using a Raspberry Pi). Wait a few seconds, then let go of the BOOTSEL button. You will see your computer mount a removable drive. Click OK in the ‘Removable medium is inserted’ window to open Raspberry Pi Pico’s on-board storage.

3. Install the UF2 firmware

Double-click the INDEX.HTM file shown in Pico’s mounted storage. Your browser will open and display the Raspberry Pi Documentation web page. Select ‘MicroPython’, then click the option to download the correct MicroPython firmware for your board (Pico or Pico W). It’s a small file, so it’ll only take a few seconds.

Open File Manager and locate the.uf2 file in the Downloads folder. Drag-and-drop the UF2 file to the Raspberry Pi Pico’s removable drive (named ‘RPI-RP2’). After a few seconds, the drive will disappear as the new MicroPython firmware is recognised and installed.

You’ll need:

“I have made extensive modification to my Jeep, including replacing the motor with a Chevy LS 6.0 V8,” Vincent tells us. “This required some hacking into the Jeep’s CAN bus to fool the Jeep into thinking it still has a motor. There is so much useful information present on the network that is not presented to the driver, and it frustrated me that one of the main user interfaces on the vehicle, the car radio, does not present or allow the driver to access it.”

Vincent looked at various solutions, but they didn’t quite fit the Jeep’s aesthetic. He decided to make something a bit more custom using a VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) to fit the original look, and even fool folks into thinking it was the stock radio.

Farm to auto

After using Raspberry Pi to fix an automated chicken coop, Vincent started using it more in projects.

“I found that it was fairly easy to use Raspberry Pi to interface to the CAN bus as well as I2C,” Vincent explains. “Since it was a Linux-based platform, it was also easy to talk to the various software-defined radio (RTL-SDR) devices out there.”

Even with a familiarity with Raspberry Pi, and ease of access to the interfaces, the project hasn’t been without issues.

“It has been a learning experience,” Vincent says. “While there are a lot of folks building things for Raspberry Pi, not a lot of the software or hardware is rugged enough to put in an automotive application. A lot of tools, while pretty cool, were written at the hobbyist level. For instance, most of the software-defined radio (SDR) tools require a desktop display, and can’t be used in a car radio app.

“The other problem was that the automotive manufacturers are really proprietary and secretive about how their systems work. I had to mostly adjust the Jeep CAN network packet information by trial and error, such as monitor the packets, open a car door, and see what changes, etc.”

In the end, Vincent wrote a custom application in C++ that talks to the VFD over the serial port. It monitors the states of the knobs and the CAN bus, talks to a GPS board via serial, and the SDR via USB.

Finishing touches

“[It’s] just about ready to replace the existing radio,” Vincent tells us. “I am currently alternating between it sitting on my shop desk and my dashboard. I have a temporary harness cabled that allows me to plug it [in] and move it back and forth. I need to paint and engrave the faceplate.”

Apparently reactions have been varied – folks who know what he’s made are blown away while others are at least appreciative of the display. Count us in as one of the blown-away parties.

We do mean beefy too – it’s larger than the original reTerminal, and attaching it does increase the footprint (and weight). However, for that sacrifice you do get a barrel DC jack, a battery compartment, PoE, improved wireless LAN, mobile network support, serial ports, microphones, and speakers for any machine learning application, and the ability to add much more storage via SATA 2.0 and M.2 drives.

Safely secured

Adding storage isn’t just a case of slotting in an SD card – the whole expansion kit comes apart so that you can install any drives into the very sturdy case so you’re not losing any protection. The battery compartment is attached by screws as well, so any portable power you put in won’t accidentally fall out.

Attaching the expansion to reTerminal is very easy – it slots into a port covered by a rubber foot on the rear end, and is then secured with a couple of provided screws. No friction or plastic clasps are used so there’s no danger of the connector wearing out, so to speak.

With that connection, you just need to install a driver and a Python library to the main reTerminal and you’re ready to go and incorporate the expansion into the system. It’s very easy and will definitely help with connecting to older hardware.

Verdict

9/10

A great, if bulky, expansion for reTerminal that seems to address any prior connectivity issues.

Specs
Connectivity: RS-485, RS-232, CAN, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet, M.2, Mini-PCIe, mobile network, wireless LAN
Dimensions: 140 mm × 95 mm × 30 mm

Nikodem had to fit the building of his own remote-controlled Mini Mars Rover around his other university work, and there was plenty to do, including designing it from scratch in CAD and undertaking a lot of 3D printing and CNC machining.

“All parts were designed in such a way that you can print them on the most popular FDM 3D printers and you don’t need a huge build plate,” he says. “The bottom plate was machined on my DIY CNC machine – IndyMill… The principle of how it works is very simple; designing and 3D printing it is not.”

He also kept adding more features while working on the project. In particular, the robotic arm was an especially time-consuming part, with Nikodem designing and then redesigning it multiple times until it worked. The 3D printing aspect took around 24 hours in total but, in the end, all parts worked beautifully.

Core components

Raspberry Pico W is integral to the Rover: “Thanks to Pico W, it is possible to control it through Wi-Fi and [a] simple Python script on a computer,” explains Nikodem. The script is created with Pygame and a simple custom class he developed for the simple user interface elements he needed.

“For controlling the micro servo motors, I am simply using 50Hz PWM signal. For DC motors I am using popular and cheap drivers, L298N, and control them through PWM and digital pins,” he explains. He also added an FPV camera system to the build, which turned out to be far simpler than he’d imagined. “I had no experience with FPV systems before; it was completely new to me, but it turned out to be super-straightforward and it works great.”

Small and sharable

Nikodem was determined to make his project as clean and small as possible “for aesthetics reasons, but also for its safety and functionality,” he underlines. He also wanted to be able to share his work with others and make it easy to replicate, so he chose to make his own custom PCB, using a cheap CNC machine he’d modified. “The best part about this setup is: in the morning I design a PCB and, by the afternoon, I have it ready for soldering.”

Nikodem’s Rover has received plenty of positive comments and he admits “that was a big relief after working on it for so long.” There were a few people who suggested that the Rover’s wheels wouldn’t survive the Mars environment, but Nikodem is pragmatic as “it was quite obvious for me from the beginning that the purpose of the project is to educate and inspire. Building it in the way real Mars rovers are built is completely unrealistic and unnecessary.”

Excitingly, Nikodem is now concentrating on his bachelor thesis project which will use Pico’s RP2040 chip. “I am currently testing the PCB for the project… The end goal is to be able to take long exposures of deep sky objects with a camera by compensating the movement of Earth and also create a go-to system with Stellarium.”

If you take a look at Nikodem’s YouTube channel, you’ll see a huge and interesting array of projects he’s worked on so far, and it seems there will be plenty more to come from this very talented maker.