Raspberry Pi Roundup - an artificial fish, a thermostat and a device to wake up teenagers

Fish!

There are many sea-borne creatures that are notoriously difficult to film and photograph. To solve this problem, researchers at MIT have developed SoFi, a rubber-encased robotic fish. Mimicking the movement and look of a real fish, SoFi can swim without disturbing the water as much as other methods which can scare away fish and other creatures. To control the robot, the researchers have encased a Raspberry Pi and a Nintendo games controller in an oil-filled rigid outer shell (pictured below) which protects the innards from water pressure. The controller triggers ultrasonic sounds that are amplified by the Pi and are then picked up by SoFi to change direction. You can read more over at Wired.

NuHeat

Nuheat HOME thermostats cost around $200 a shot. Although very nice, they suffer from being destroyed by electricity spikes. Faced with needing yet another replacement, hacker Sergey has turned to the Raspberry Pi to provide a better, more cost-effective solution.In the end, it was about 25% cheaper and features a Pi Zero W, a 7-inch touchscreen running Chromium in kiosk mode, some power circuitry and analog-to-digital converter and a white picture frame to house the whole thing. The build has been documented thoroughly and you can read how he did it here.

Klaxon!

One of James West’s sons has been known not to hear the cry of “tea time!” because of loud music playing in his bedroom. James has come up with a Raspberry Pi solution to the problem featuring a 12V LED tower with buzzer. Using some code from Pimoroni and using one of their Automation pHATs and a 12V power supply, he’s hooked it up to a Raspberry Pi Zero which monitors Twitter for a hashtag. When the hashtag is activated, the lights come on in sequence and the (quite ear-piercing) buzzer sounds. He’s wrapped the wiring inside a wooden box for safety. You can read about the project, and get the code, on his blog and see a video of the final project below: