Chicken pi is a chicken made out of Legos that lays eggs. via richardhaylor
Every Easter the school has an egg decorating competition. Last year the boys were victorious with a joint effort that used their soldering skills to create this great (and pun-tastic) scene.
The boys were really keen to use a Pi this year and inspired by the excellent egg-laying machine we saw at the Raspberry Pi birthday party, decided to build a Lego version.
We decided to use the Lego WeDo hub that we had to make fitting a motor easy, and then had the bright idea to use the distance sensor as the trigger: You put your finger in between the chicken’s beak and on detecting the change in distance value reported by the sensor, the Pi activates the motor. Manual re-loading of the egg is then required!
The eggs are inserted into a cage mechanism in the Chicken’s body. The motor is mounted perpendicular to the cage and turns it via two a simple 90 degree gearbox. This rotates a central shaft that translates the egg around and over a hole in the bottom of the chicken. A little trail and error enabled us to calculate how long to power the motor in order to achieve the desired range of motion.
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!
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
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!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: MicroPython v1.24.0 is here, a Halloween Wrap-up and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey