Here is my report on the Raspberry Pi Fest at the Portsmouth and South East
Hampshire Linux User Group meeting on Saturday 15 April 2017, Easter
Saturday.
I would be grateful for corrections and offered re-writes before I put it up
on the web.
We had a lively and enjoyable session. Four people demonstrated various
projects on various Pi's.
Ian Bowden had travelled from Richmond Surrey with a complete Raspberry Pi
repair toolkit, and repaired Chris Aubrey-Smith's broken SD card holder. It
was fascinating to watch anything so small being removed, by melting and
cleaning up solder; and then being replaced: even though I personally
practically had to put my nose in the solder to see it all!
Ian also showed us a TimePeace clock for dementia, powered by a Raspberry Pi,
that he had made for his late mother, to remind her of the time, day, date,
her name and location etc. It was someone else's design, so he did not claim
credit, but he showed us how it could be programmed to suit the individual
for whom it was intended.
Ian also showed us a Raspberry Pi powered system, designed and made by him,
that is installed on Teddington Lock to catch and protect elvers (baby eels )
as they travel up stream though the lock.
Chris Aubrey-Smith was the repairee in the above “case”. The SD card holder
on his early model Pi is now fully functional again.
He also showed us his completed all-in-one general purpose computer, assembled
from a Raspberry Pi mounted on the back of a small second hand television,
with HDMI input. This - HDMI - is apparently rare!
Chris tells me further:
“The brand name is 'Luxor', but I've seen a near-identical example with a
different brand name. A label tells me that it was supplied by Asda in
Leeds.
“I think I gave them £20; I seem to remember giving them a bit more than
they were asking.
Yesterday I installed it on my bed-side table, where it serves as TV or
computer at the press of a button.... (I doubt that it will stay there as
it's too useful as a portable, general-purpose display for Pi experiments.)”
Peter Rose showed us his RuneAudio music system. It produced an impressive
noise with a Raspberry Pi with a Cirrus Logic Audio Card connected to a Gear4
docking station, with the aid of a small (dimensions – not capacity) hard
drive containing the music data files.. It was hard to believe that
something so small could produce so impressive a sound.
Peter had brought two Raspberry Pi's, one working, one broken. As tends to be
the way on these occasions, when the working one resolutely refused to work,
Peter connected up the broken one and it worked perfectly!
http://www.runeaudio.com/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-as-Hi-Fi-player-with-RuneAudio/
The Pi that Peter believed to be working arrived in quite the most appealing
little wooden case that I have seen for a Pi. It was basically held together
and ventilated by its own tension. I have been unable to find a picture of a
similar one on line. Perhaps Peter could oblige?
John Spragg demonstrated his MAGIC MIRROR.
<
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/>
I was slightly bemused by the messages it was giving out, in addition to
information on the weather, which I could see being very useful while trying
to decide what to wear in the morning. Do I really want to be addressed
as “Hey! Sexy!” first thing in the morning – or ever????
Jon had also brought his impressive “Lego box”, with a Pi inside it.. In
addition, clearly, to being able to be stacked one on top of the other,
the “Lego” boards on the top (convex) and bottom (concave) looked as though
they would click correctly into genuine Lego. For ventilation between
stacked Pi's? For feet? For some kind of decoration? I felt deprived of
any Lego to test it out!
Sorry this has been so long coming.
Lisi
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