My Raspberry Pi Halloween project for this year is based around the Raspberry Pi RGB matrix display project. I have put the RGB Matrix outside of my house and wanted to display a Halloween animation on the display. I also wanted to include a PIR sensor which changed the display when someone approached the display. […]

Blender is well known as a 3D modelling tool, but it is also good for creating 2D animations. It includes the ability to create timeline based animations using Keyframes with automatic tweening and fine control over all the objects. If you don’t know what that means then hopefully this video for beginners will provide a […]

The Raspberry Pi is now available with 8GB of RAM. The cost is higher, costing almost twice as much as the 2GB version, although only about £25 more than the 4GB version. The question is what can you do with 8GB of RAM and do you really need that much? The fact that you can […]

I have had a 3D printer for about two and half years now and I’m still learning. One of the biggest problems I have had is problems with getting the first layer to stick to the print bed. This is a common problem, but not one that I’ve been able to find a simple solution. […]

I was again involved with the Raspberry Pi Birthday Celebrations in Birmingham. This years event was held at the STEMHouse in Birmingham. A makerspace / startup space designed for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to create a product. There was a strong influence of 3D printing and games programming at the event, including my own […]

In this final part of the design for a 3D printed model railway building I’ve added additional features such as the door, windows and roof as well as adding a smoke generator. These were all designed in TinkerCAD. These are designed in TinkerCAD and then exported for 3D printing. The smoke generator is fitted into […]

This is an update on my first outdoor model railway building created using a 3D printer. In the first version of the model railway building I created the building in several different parts, in this version I have decided on just 3. The main part is the body of the building, then the roof and […]

Megaquarium is a computer game where you get a design your own aquarium tourist attraction. It’s like Roller Coaster Tycoon, based around a Sea Life Centre. My son wants it as a Christmas present, which is great except in the days of digital downloads a bunch of binary digits doesn’t quite feel the same as […]

This year I’ve been creating a 3D model of a building for an outdoor model railway. Technically it’s a building for a weigh bridge rather than a house, but I’ve given it a Santa’s Grotto make-over for Christmas and so Christmas House sounds better. The building is designed in TinkerCAD based on a real building […]

This is a model that I’ve made using TinkerCAD. A snowman designed for 3D printing on a home 3D printer. It’s been created to approximate G-Scale (1:22.5) for outdoor model railways. It’s also hollow so that you can insert an LED inside and have it light-up (assuming it’s printed with a light coloured PLA) so […]