Raspberry Pi Roundup - 5th August 2016

Digital Making Day in Cambridge

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that they are holding a Digital Making day for youngsters in Cambridge. To apply, you need to be aged between 12 and 18, living in the UK, and free on Tuesday 23rd August 2016. They’re planning on doing some filming with those people who are selected, so you also need to be comfortable with that. No experience is necessary, just a willingness to make things and get excited about it!

The Foundation is willing to provide travel costs and (if you’re coming a long way) accommodation costs too.

All you need to do to apply to attend the day is film a short video of yourself saying what you like to make, and what activities you get up to in the making arena. Don’t panic – a video shot from your mobile will do. Then, you upload it somewhere (YouTube is really easy) and use the application form. You need to do this by this Sunday!!!

This is a really great opportunity to meet the Foundation people – they’re really clever and friendly and you’ll have a great day!

Bartender

The folks over at Synchro.io have come up with a lovely robotic bartender solution using a Raspberry Pi. Called Drinkro, the system makes drinks out of vodka and several mixers using DC peristaltic liquid pumps connected to the Pi. There’s even a mobile app to allow you to order drinks! It’s very slow at the moment, as you can see from the video below, but you can read more about it on their blog.

Zero over USB

For a while, it has been possible to communicate and program a Raspberry Pi Zero via it’s USB data port. In this tutorial, which features lots of screenshots, Scott Campbell has described how to connect your Zero, change a couple of config files and then set-up the necessary network connection. Read the tutorial here.

RasPiO ProHAT

In the MagPi issue 47, Phil King wrote a review of the RasPiO ProHAT. This clever prototyping HAT breaks out all the GPIO pins in numerical (BCM) order to female headers as well as adding several power and ground ports. The pins surround a mini breadboard and they are all protected by a resistor and a diode, making it much safer to prototype with. If you’re in need of unprotected GPIO pins, however, the pins are also broken out again to an unpopulated header. It’s a great, very positive review and you can read it here.

You can pre-order a RasPiO ProHAT from the RasPiO website.