Build a Robot that Reads Audiobooks or Speaks Your Tweets Aloud @Raspberry_Pi #piday #raspberrypi

Check out this adorable raspberry pi powered radio built by William Lindmeier.

As you can see in the system diagram the brains of Magpi Radio is a Raspberry Pi computer. These are small, cheap linux computers that pack a lot of horse power, making them perfect for internet-of-thingsy projects like this. Here are some of the benefits of the Pi when picking your hardware:

Speed: The Pi runs at 700 mhz with 512 MB of RAM. I never experienced any latency when making this project.

Audio: Playing audio files is a breeze through the audio jack and supports pretty much any format you throw at it.

Programming: You’re not limited to a specific library or language. I wrote the Magpi software in Ruby to leverage the excellent Twitter gems (twitter and tweetstream).

You’ll also notice an Arduino in the diagram, which handled the physical interface (the knobs and light). The reason I used the Arduino in addition to the Pi is because the Pi doesn’t have great support for analog io. I was able to read the volume potentiometer with an ADC chip through the GPIO pins, but because there’s only 1 PWM pin I wasn’t able to control the RBG LED. (If you’re interested in using the Pi’s GPIO pins for sensor io, I’d recommend the WiringPi lib).

So the Arduino was connected to the Raspberry Pi with a USB cable to provide serial communication and power. This ended up being quite a challenge, but I eventually stumbled onto this post that solves the problem of communicating with the Arduino over USB.

Read more and see the full tutorial here.

NewImage


Featured Adafruit Product!

NewImage

MCP3008 – 8-Channel 10-Bit ADC With SPI Interface – Need to add analog inputs? This chip will add 8 channels of 10-bit analog input to your microcontroller or microcomputer project. It’s super easy to use, and uses SPI so only 4 pins are required. We chose this chip as a great accompaniment to the Raspberry Pi computer, because its fun to have analog inputs but the Pi does not have an ADC.


998Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.