I’ve recently been to visit the Sony UK factory where the Raspberry Pi is made. This was made possible thanks to RS Components and a competition to win a tour around the site. The site known as the Sony UK Technology Centre is based in Pencoed Wales. At the site they manufacture high-end video cameras […]

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and NFC (Near Field Communication) provide the ability for devices to talk to each other by touching them together. This could be between two smart devices or between a smart device to a simple tag embedded into a card or sticker. In my case my requirements were quite basic as I […]

The BBC micro:bit includes an accelerometer which allows you to track the movement of the micro:bit. This means that it can be used to as a controller similar to how the Wii remote control tracks it’s movement through the air. For this project I used the micro:bit as a wired device to control my existing […]

One of the things I’ve been doing with the micro:bit is to have it relay messages to a connected host computer. This is fairly easy within python on a Linux computer (such as the Raspberry Pi) thanks to the pyserial module which supports sending and receiving serial communication over a serial USB device. It’s even […]

I’ve been playing around with a BBC Micro:Bit for the last few days. You can see my first adventures in programming MicroPython on the Micro:Bit using a Raspberry Pi 2. One of the first things that you normally do when learning electronics is to light up an LED. It gives an immediate output and adds […]

The BBC Micro:Bit will be going out to school children in the UK during 2016. In the meantime I have been given a sneak peek as part of the microbit world tour. The aim is to put the micro:bit into the hands of some Python programmers that can find out what is possible and create […]

The Raspberry Pi foundation has made a new Raspberry Pi computer called the PiZero. It’s a smaller version of the version 1 Raspberry Pi that’s been stripped back to the bare essentials with price that’s an amazing $5 (currently £4 in the UK including VAT). Not only that but they are so inexpensive they’ve been […]

One of the benefits of a Debian based Linux operating system is how easy it is to upgrade. In the case of Ubuntu and the KDE version Kubuntu then there is a new release every 6 months providing. This provides a way to get the latest versions of all the software with minimal fuss. For […]

I have a Dell laptop – Dell Inspiron 17 model 7737 When I first bought it I installed Ubuntu 13.10, which worked well with a little tweaking of the clickpad settings. More details about installing Ubuntu Linux on the Dell model 7000 series are available here. Since then I’ve moved to Kubuntu (based on Ubuntu […]

I recently spent a day at the Malvern Festival of Innovation – introducing pupils to physical computing and computer programming. The event was in co-operation with STEMNet (who arrange the background checks and provide support) and The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) (who provided all the materials and equipment on the day). The event […]