I have already posted about the Energenie wireless remote control sockets. I’ve now had chance to look through one of their other products – which is an infrared remote control socket. This is a power saving socket allowing a TV and associated equipment to be fully powered off from the mains socket using the normal […]

Git is a version control system. A way of keeping regular backups of files which is particularly useful for creating computer source code. I’ve used other version control systems before (CVS and Subversion) and other tools that provide an element of version control (eg. Dropbox), but so far I’ve only really used them when I […]

This Halloween I created an indoor halloween light effect using a Raspberry Pi and a PIR sensor. Unlike previous years my children weren’t really involved in making this one, which is because my 9 year old daughter decided to create her own Raspberry Pi based Halloween Project. She has created a Raspberry Pi, Makey Makey […]

It’s useful to be able to turn mains electricity on using a computer program. Whilst it’s not hard to create an electronic circuit that can switch mains voltages, if not done correctly it can be dangerous. This is where the remote control sockets can be used to create a physical barrier between the low voltage […]

It’s not often that you see a Raspberry Pi workshop, a team from (soon to be???) the worlds fastest car and some llamas in the same room, but that’s what you’d find at this years school’s day at the Malvern Festival of Innovation. I was there as a STEM Ambassador helping out on the Raspberry […]

During the second world war Bletchley Park was home to the Government Code and Cypher School and played a critical role deciphering encrypted messages. I first visited a several years ago before it was opened to the public, it seamed a shame then that such an important part of British history wasn’t more accessible. Since […]

One of the things I’ve been doing as a STEM Ambassador is to help support a Raspberry Pi club at a local high school. At first the club was led by the sixth form students, with the teachers and myself helping out as required. This was working well at first, but with many of the […]

When I first showed my Raspberry Pi based “Ruby Robot” at the Raspberry Jam at Pycon UK, I promised a guide would be forthcoming. I’ve now finished the first draft of my guide to creating the robot. The guide does more than just take the reader through the steps to create a robot. It also […]

I’ve been looking to create a program with my eight year old daughter since running a Code Club at the end of last year. We’ve done some little bits in Scratch, but without a specific project I found my daughter became distracted. I also try and incorporate activities at home related to school projects they […]

Recently I taught programming Scratch to some primary school teachers. One of the questions I was asked was about the youngest age that you could teach Scratch to. It’s a difficult question and as with all teaching it depends upon the ability of the child. I gave the answer that “Scratch is designed for children […]