Raspberry Pi Roundup - 13th June 2016

Pi Wars

The Raspberry Pi challenge-based robotics competition will be back on 1st April 2017 at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory. To register your interest as a competing team, please fill out this form on the Pi Wars website. To be kept “in the loop” if you’re interested in attending, please join the Pi Wars mailing list. Further details are being worked out and will be released soon including how to apply to enter, what challenges will be at the competition this time and how to get hold of spectator tickets. General information about Pi Wars, and details of last year’s competition, can be found on the Pi Wars website.

Android support

Android OS on the Raspberry Pi has been something of a ‘holy grail’ since the device was launched. Up to now, efforts have been extremely disappointing and slow. However, Google may now be developing a version of the operating system that will work on the more powerful Raspberry Pi 3. So far, there is just an empty repository but who knows what will happen over the next few months?

Music Box

Over on my personal blog, I've written up a project I recently completed called the Pi Music Box. It is a wooden box with several buttons and dials on top that can be used as a musical instrument. Most of the components came from The Pi Hut's sister site Makersify and you can read the full account and see a video of it in action over at the Pi Pod.

Zero Flight

When the original Zero came out, high altitude balloonist Dave Akerman said to Eben Upton that he’d love to see a new revision with a camera port, as that would make it ideal for ballooning and taking photographs of the journey. As we know, this has now happened and Dave has sent up the new model with a new camera module. A full account of the launch, chase and recovery can be found here, on Dave’s blog.