Raspberry Pi Roundup - 30th November 2015

HAT boxes

James Mitchell, who runs Raspberry Jam Berlin, recently decided that he wanted to protect and store his HATs. I can sympathise! I’ve got so many of the things and no handy storage solution. He has created some templates that you can print out on paper or cardboard to solve the problem. They come in a variety of sizes (10mm, 12mm, 15mm) and can be found on his GitHub account. Take a look here.

LED wall

Andrew Oakley, from the Cotswold Raspberry Jam, has written an excellent tutorial in which he describes how to create a large, scrolling LED wall, controlled from a Raspberry Pi. He takes you through all aspects of the construction and powering the LEDs and includes the code to scroll messages across it. Take a look here.

Projects

Here’s a new publication from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Rather than print digital-only issues 31-35 individually, they have taken the ‘best bits’ from those issues and mashed them together to create the Projects Book. It has 200 pages and costs £12.99, which is comparable with other “magbooks” on the market. The book is available from WHSmith or online from the Swag store. Read more about it here.

3D modelling

3D Slash, based in France, has just released a free version of their 3D modelling app (also called 3D Slash) to download on their website. You need to register but once you have you have access to this point-and-click software that will enable you to prototype just by clicking on blocks in the view area. It looks fairly low-res, but it’s a great starter app to get you used to the concepts involved in designing for 3D printing. Read more here or visit their website.