Raspberry Pi Roundup - 25th June 2015

Space-age

Outernet is an interesting service that broadcasts a large amount of internet-mined content via an orbiting satellite. Anyone can receive it, providing they have the appropriate equipment, on a Raspberry Pi. Here’s some info on the information that is being broadcast from theRaspberry Pi Foundation:

The content is the kind of thing you would find in a public library, with resources on human health, anatomy, encyclopaedias, how-to guides and news feeds. The data is broadcast cyclically so that any new receiver joining the broadcast can catch up with everyone else. The content received from the satellites is cached and served out to the users via http pages, meaning that any device with a browser can be used to read it (both Ethernet and WiFi are supported). It’s worth noting this is only one-waycontent, because you can’t send messages back up to the satellites.

So it’s kind of a satellite-powered internet for places where you can’t receive the internet. The Foundation have purchased a kit from the Outernet website and set it up on their roof. Read more here.

Temperature

Matt over at Raspberry Pi Spy has written a great tutorial on using the BMP180 to take temperature readings over I2C and then logging them online via thingspeak.com. He’s provided all the code online for you to download and full wiring instructions for the sensor, LED and button. Read more here. You can get hold of this cheap sensor from The Pi Hut.

Wooden robot

Richard Saville has done a lovely write-up of his experience of building a Raspberry Pi robot from scratch. He’s used wood for the chassis, small motors and tracks. Read more here.