Raspberry Pi Roundup - 18th May 2016

Streaming robot

James Poole, who recently gave us a great way to put a Raspberry Pi Zero inside a SNES controller, has branched out into robotics. He’s gone about it the old-fashioned way by using an H-bridge chip to drive two motors attached to a chassis with the Pi onboard. He’s then hooked up a USB webcam to allow him to see where he’s going. He has open-sourced all the code to do it and released it on GitHub. Take a look at his blog for more details on how to install the software and wire up the circuit.

Veggies!

Ben Finio’s wife plants a large vegetable garden every year but eventually grows tired of maintaining it. I can sympathise. A lot. So, Ben decided that he could use a Raspberry Pi to automate the watering process. He has set his sights low and uses the Weather Underground API to determine if it rained the day before. If it didn’t, then garden is watered by his irrigation system. Read the Instructable of how he did it here.

Supercomputer

YouTube user Phaxmohdem has built a 15 Raspberry Pi 2 (60 core) supercomputer cluster into a portable toolbox. He is using a 300W power supply for it but it only draws about 45W when under full load. He’s done some benchmarks but hasn’t said what he’s using the cluster for (although the comments section has some *ahem* suggestions) Watch the video above for a little tour or visit the YouTube video page.

Work experience

I’ve had a couple of emails from some parents of teenagers who are seeking work experience in the Hertfordshire/Cambridgeshire area. They are looking for something in the computing/technology arena. If you or your company is able to offer something like this, please get in contact with me.