Welcome to Issue 29 of the MagPi, packed with the usual mixture of hardware projects and programming articles, providing lots of avenues for invention during December.
With the Christmas holidays drawing near, what could be better than some new Raspberry Pi hardware. For all those looking forward to building a high altitude capsule or autonomous submarine, the Model A+ provides many great features for a very low power budget. Dougie Lawson presents a whistle-stop tour of the A+, comparing it to other Raspberry Pi Models.
On the subject of robots, computer vision can provide an image cognition solution within many autonomous robotics projects. Derek Campbell sketches out more features of OpenCV (open source computer vision) image recognition software.
The Raspberry Pi is ideally suited as the hub of a sensor array or control unit, since it can be used to propagate information via a web server or other remote protocol. In this Issue, John Shovic’s presents his final article in the Project Curacao remote monitoring series, David Bannon demonstrates how to build and read a simple array of digital temperature sensors, and Brian Grawburg introduces his traffic light extension board.
When developing software or projects, it is important to retain unique files that are part of the build. In this Issue, Alec Clews continues his series on software repositories and using Git, and William Bell discusses the basics of adding external storage to the Raspberry Pi.
Computer programming enables the Raspberry Pi to be used within many different applications. This month, Jon Silvera discusses how to drive a robotic arm with FUZE BASIC, William Bell presents a simple space arcade game in Scratch and Paul Sutton introduces Python graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
The MagPi will be taking a short break over Christmas and the first Issue of 2015 will be published at the start of February.
Each 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!
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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 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Each 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!