I have now got a 3D printer. I haven’t done much with it yet and it’s a steep learning curve but I’m looking forward to getting into 3D printing. Choosing a 3D printer The first decision was which 3D printer to buy. There are a lot of different choices starting from little over £100 and […]

Around Halloween 2016 Element 14 ran a Costume Competition for wearable tech projects. Boo! Pi Costume Contest I was already working on a Wizard of Oz costume so I submitted my project to the competition. You can find out more about the Raspberry Pi – PiZero NeoPixel bow tie here. My costume was one of […]

I decided to create a Wizard of Oz costume for Halloween this year. As you probably know The Wizard of Oz wasn’t really a wizard at all. He used a mechanical machine to convince the citizens of Oz about his magical abilities. What you may not know is that he was more than just a […]

These are some of the Halloween Projects I’ve created. Haunted House A scary haunted house, using a Raspberry Pi, home automation, electronics and scary music. Raspberry Pi Haunted House Raspberry Pi MotionSensor Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin My son’s Motion Sensor based Light Up Pumpkin project Halloween Motion Sensor Pumpkin Wizard of Oz Costume A Wizard of Oz […]

My 8 year old son has now completed another Raspberry Pi project. This project is a Halloween Pumpkin, or jack-o’-lantern, which is triggered whenever someone comes near. It uses a PIR motion sensor to detect someone entering the room and then lights up a sequence of NeoPixels. In this case these are static green and […]

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 […]

Click the image above for the slides for the Disco Light talk at the Pi Birthday 2016. Worksheet for Raspberry Pi NeoPixel practical session 2017 Below is a worksheet giving hands-on with connecting up NeoPixels to a Raspberry Pi using a breadboard. This uses breadboard NeoPixels. These do need a little soldering initially, but once […]

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 […]

Frustrated by the lack of Linux support for an education Robot Arm I bought – I’ve written my own. Other community members had already worked out the code to allow you to program the robot arm yourself in Python, but I wanted something that young children could easily see and interact with. I have therefore […]

Introduction This is a review of the Meccanoid G15K personal robot from Meccano. It’s a programmable robot that’s about 4 feet tall (about the same size as a 6 year old child). The recommended minimum age is 10 which I believe is the age for making it; I’m hoping to use it to teach programming […]