Raspberry Pi Roundup - 21st September 2015

Telecom

The people over at Toymaker Television always like to start their projects by ‘building a time machine’. It’s kind of a broad statement, so we’ll ignore it for now. What they’ve done is to re-create an old retro computer with a Raspberry Pi and then hook that up to a modem by way of something called an Acoustic Coupler. That’s what people used to use to talk to modems over a serial line from their old green-screen ‘dumb terminals’ and get on the internet. The ridiculously complex Instructable is available here. I sound like I’m taking the proverbial, but actually it’s a beautiful project.

Virtual Jam

If you've ever wanted to attend a Raspberry Jam, but haven't yet managed to, you can experience part of the Cambridge one by viewing the talk videos on our YouTube channel. The latest set has just been uploaded and includes the following:

• CamJam EduKit 3 announcement
• Concurrent programming with the Pi 2
• Building a Python API
• Using a Pi as a Virtual Private Network
• Crowdfunding
• Challenges of the Internet of Things
• Skycademy
• Minecraft for Education
• Air Pollution Art Installation
• Coding Evenings
• The challenges of putting a Pi Camera outdoors
• Pi in Primary (Excitement, Adventure and Really Wild Things)
• Festival of Code

The Cube... of Rubik!

Liz Upton has posted on the Raspberry Pi blog about a machine which could replace certain abilities of the Foundation’s team. The machine solves Rubik’s Cubes, using a scanner to work out what squares are showing in which position and then using multiple motors it manipulates the Cube to solve it. The algorithm and motor movements are all worked out using a Compute Module. Maxim Tsoy and Wilbert Swinkels are the creators and they have spoken about the project on their blog. You can see it in action below: