Raspberry Pi Roundup - a Sudoku solver, a lighting detector and an e-paper bag

Sudoku

A maker called msana has posted his latest project in Hackster.IO. It is a robot, based on a 3D printer, with a Raspberry Pi & camera module attached. The camera takes a photo of a Sudoku puzzle placed on the print bed which is then image-processed via OpenCV to determine the exact layout of the puzzle. The puzzle is then abstracted and run through intelligence library TensorFlow to determine the solution. The robot part then writes the solution onto the grid using a pen attached via the motors. You can read more about the project here, (although I would like to have seen much more detail on the robotic part of the build). The code is available on GitHub. See it in action below:

Lightning

France-based Hexalyse has hooked up an AS3935 Franklin Lightning Sensor to his Raspberry Pi. This sensor is able to detect the approach of a storm by detecting lightning up to 40km away and it comes on a little breakout board that can interact with the Pi over the I2C bus. He used a library that someone else had written and Python to detect the lightning flashes and, if certain circumstances are satisfied (such as number of strikes within a time frame), the system Tweets via the Tweepy library. He’s uploaded the code to GitHuband written up the project on his blog. You can get hold of the sensor from Embedded Adventures.

E-paper badge

Belgian maker Frederick Vandenbosch wanted a wearable to take to this year’s Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend (Pi Party). So, he put together a Raspberry Pi Zero, a Pi Supply PaPiRus e-paper HAT, a Pimoroni Zero LiPo and a 3D-printed back plate and created a lanyard-hung badge. The badge shows his personal details, his logo and also photographs of various projects so he could press a button and then talk about the project being shown. He’s written the whole thing up on the Element 14 website, so head over there to take a look.