Raspberry Pi Roundup - 8th April 2016

Explore AstroPi

Hannah Belshaw from Cumnor House Girls School recently won the chance to have her AstroPi project run on the International Space Station. The project records data from the AstroPi’s SenseHAT and then visualises that data inside the world of Minecraft. Martin O’Hanlon, Minecraft Pi guru, has turned the project into a “learn” resource for the Raspberry Pi Foundation and it has now been published. Take a look at the resource here.

Steam

“Alexzpro” has created a steam boiler (with water heated by two propane blow torches!) which drives a two-cylinder steam engine. The engine turns a motor which generates power. A regulator and some capacitors converts the power into a steady 5V supply and this is then fed into a Raspberry Pi Zero. You canread a bit more here on the Forum on which he was able to get a bit of help sorting out voltage issues.

Braille

Bristol Braille Technology is working on a more affordable replacement for traditional Braille reading machines. Under the hood is a Raspberry Pi running C and Python, controlling off-the-shelf motors and plastic gears to create the Braille text. Traditionally, Braille machines can cost £1000-2000. The BBT version is coming in at around £440. They hope to have a positive effect on declining rates of Braille literacy. More information and an interview with BBT founder Ed Rogers, is available over at arstechnica.

Tracker Music

Everyone’s heard of Sonic Pi, the programmer’s method of producing music on the Pi. Seth Kenlon wanted to use the Pi to produce electronic music the more traditional way – by using synths, trackers and other software in combination. You can read about the different packages he uses over at opensource.com.