You’re watching the new episode of Game of Thrones, and suddenly you hear your children, up and about after their bedtime! Now you’ll probably miss a crucial moment of the show because you have to put them to bed again. Or you’re out to dinner with friends and longing for the sight of your sleeping small humans. What do you do? Text the babysitter to check on them? Well, luckily for you these issues could soon be things of the past, thanks to Bert Vuylsteke and his Pi-powered Sleepbuddy. This IoT-controlled social robot could fulfil all your remote babysitting needs!

IoT Sleepbuddy – babyphone – Design concept

This is the actual concept of my robot and in what context it can be used.

A social robot?

A social robot fulfils a role normally played by a person, and interacts with humans via human language, gestures, and facial expressions. This is what Bert says about the role of the Sleepbuddy:

[For children, it] is a friend or safeguard from nightmares, but it is so much more for the babysitters or parents. The babysitters or parents connect their smartphone/tablet/PC to the Sleepbuddy. This will give them access to control all his emotions, gestures, microphone, speaker and camera. In the eye is a hidden camera to see the kids sleeping. The speaker and microphone allow communication with the kids through WiFi.

The roots of the Sleepbuddy

As a student at Ghent University, Bert had to build a social robot using OPSORO, the university’s open-source robotics platform. The developers of this platform create social robots for research purposes. They are also making all software, as well as hardware design plans, available on GitHub. In addition, you will soon be able to purchase their robot kits via a Kickstarter. OPSORO robots are designed around the Raspberry Pi, and controlled via a web interface. The interface allows you to customise your robot’s behaviour, using visual or text-based programming languages.

The Sleepbuddy’s components

Building the Sleepbuddy

Bert has provided a detailed Instructable describing the process of putting the Sleepbuddy together, complete with video walk-throughs. However, the making techniques he has used include thermoforming, laser cutting, and 3D printing. If you want to recreate this build, you may need to contact your local makerspace to find out whether they have the necessary equipment.

Assembling the Sleepbuddy

Finally, Bert added an especially cute touch to this project by covering the Sleepbuddy in blackboard paint. Therefore, kids can draw on the robot to really make it their own!

So many robots!

At Pi Towers we are partial to all kinds of robots, be they ones that test medical devices, play chess or Connect 4, or fight other robots. If they twerk, or are cute, tiny, or shoddy, we maybe even like them a tiny bit more.

Do you share our love of robots? Would you like to make your own? Then check out our resource for building a simple robot buggy. Maybe it will kick-start your career as the general of a robot army. A robot army that does good, of course! Let us know your benevolent robot overlord plans in the comments.

When we released the Google AIY Projects kit with Issue 57 of The MagPi in May, we could hardly wait to see what you in the community would build with it. Being able to add voice interaction to your Raspberry Pi projects opens up a world of possibilities for exciting digital making.

One such project is maker Martin Mander‘s Google Pi Intercom. We love this build for its retro feel and modern functionality, a combination of characteristics shared by many of Martin’s creations.

1986 Google Pi Intercom

This is a 1986 Radio Shack Intercom that I’ve converted into a Google Home style device using a Raspberry Pi and the Google AIY (Artificial Intelligence Yourself) kit that came free with the MagPi magazine (issue 57). It uses the Google Assistant to answer questions and perform actions, using IFTTT to integrate with smart home accessories and other web services.

Inter-com again?

If you’ve paid any attention at all to the world of Raspberry Pi in the last few months, you’ve probably seen the Google AIY Projects kit that came free with The MagPi #57. It includes a practical cardboard housing, but of course makers everywhere have been upgrading their kits, for example by creating a laser-cut wooden box. Martin, however, has taken things to the next level: he’s installed his AIY kit in a wall-mounted intercom from 1986.

The components of the Google Pi Intercom

It’s all (inter)coming together

Martin already had not one, but three vintage intercoms at home. So when he snatched up an AIY Projects kit, there was no doubt in his mind about how he was going to use it:

The moment I scooped the Google AIY kit, I knew that one of these old units would be a perfect match for it – after all, both were essentially based on a button, microphone, and loudspeaker, just with different technology in between.

Preparing the intercom housing

First, Martin gutted the intercom and ground away some of the excess plastic inside. This was necessary because integrating all the components was going to be a tight fit. To overhaul its look, he then gave the housing a good scrub and a new paint job. For a splash of colour, Martin affixed a strip of paper in the palette of the Google logo.

BUBBLES!

Building the Google Pi Intercom

The intercom’s speaker wasn’t going to provide good enough sound quality. Moreover, Martin quickly realised that the one included in the AIY kit was too big for this make. He hunted down a small speaker online, and set about wiring everything up.

Assembling the electronics

Martin wanted the build to resemble the original intercom as closely as possible. Consequently, he was keen to use its tilting bar to activate the device’s voice command function. Luckily, it was easy to mount the AIY kit’s button behind the bar.

Using the intercom’s tilting bar switch

Finally it was only a matter of using some hot glue and a few screws and bolts to secure all the components inside the housing. Once he’d done that, Martin just had to set up the software of the Google Assistant, and presto! He had a voice-controlled smart device for home automation.

A pretty snazzy-looking build, isn’t it? If you’d like to learn more about Martin’s Google Pi Intercom, head over to the Instructables page for a complete rundown.

Awaiting your command

The AIY Projects Kit

Didn’t manage to snap up an AIY Projects kit? Find out how to get your hands on one over at The MagPi.

Or do you have an AIY kit at home? Lucky you! You can follow our shiny new learning resource to get started with using it. There are also lots of handy articles about the kit in The MagPi #57 – download the PDF version here. If you’re stuck, or looking for inspiration, check out our AIY Projects subforum. Ask your questions, and help others by answering theirs.

What have you built with your AIY Projects kit? Be sure to share your voice-controlled project with us in the comments.

Education is our mission at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, so of course we love tools that help teachers and other educators use Raspberry Pis in a classroom setting. PiNet, which allows teachers to centrally manage a whole classroom’s worth of Pis, makes administrating a fleet of Pis easier. Set up individual student accounts, install updates and software, share files – PiNet helps you do all of this!

Caleb VinCross on Twitter

The new PiNet lab up and running. 30 raspberry pi 3’s running as fat clients for 600 + students. Much thanks to the PiNet team! @PiNetDev.

PiNet developer Andrew

PiNet was built and is maintained by Andrew Mulholland, who started work on this project when he was 15, and who is also one of the organisers of the Northern Ireland Raspberry Jam. Check out what he says about PiNet’s capabilities in his guest post here.

PiNet running in a classroom

PiNet, teacher’s pet

PiNet has been available for about two years now, and the teachers using it are over the moon. Here’s what a few of them say about their experience:

We wanted a permanently set up classroom with 30+ Raspberry Pis to teach programming. Students wanted their work to be secure and backed up and we needed a way to keep the Pis up to date. PiNet has made both possible and the classroom now required little or no maintenance. PiNet was set up in a single day and was so successful we set up a second Pi room. We now have 60 Raspberry Pis which are used by our students every day. – Rob Jones, Secondary School Teacher, United Kingdom

AKS Computing on Twitter

21xRaspPi+dedicated network+PiNet server+3 geeks = success! Ready to test with a full class.

I teach Computer Science at middle school, so I have 4 classes per day in my lab, sharing 20 Raspberry Pis. PiNet gives each student separate storage space. Any changes to the Raspbian image can be done from my dashboard. We use Scratch, Minecraft Pi, Sonic Pi, and do physical computing. And when I have had issues, or have wanted to try something a little crazy, the support has been fabulous. – Bob Irving, Middle School Teacher, USA

Wolf Math on Twitter

We’re starting our music unit with @deejaydoc. My CS students are going through the @Sonic_Pi turorial on @PiNetDev.

I teach computer classes for about 600 students between the ages of 5 and 13. PiNet has really made it possible to expand our technology curriculum beyond the simple web-based applications that our Chromebooks were limited to. I’m now able to use Arduino boards to do basic physical computing with LEDs and sensors. None of this could have happened without PiNet making it easy to have an affordable, stable, and maintainable way of managing 30 Linux computers in our lab. – Caleb VinCross, Primary School Teacher, USA

More for educators

If you’re involved in teaching computing, be that as a professional or as a volunteer, check out the new free magazine Hello World, brought to you by Computing At School, BCS Academy of Computing, and Raspberry Pi working in partnership. It is written by educators for educators, and available in print and as a PDF download. And if you’d like to keep up to date with what we are offering to educators and learners, sign up for our education newsletter here.

Are you a teacher who uses Raspberry Pis in the classroom, or another kind of educator who has used them in a group setting? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

To everyone’s surprise, the sun has actually managed to show its face this summer in Britain! So we’re not feeling too guilty for having asked the newest crop of Pioneers to Make it outdoors. In fact, the 11- to 16-year-olds that took part in our second digital making challenge not only made things that celebrate the outdoors – some of them actually carted their entire coding setup into the garden. Epic!

The winners

Winners of the second Pioneers challenge are…

We asked you to make it outdoors with tech, challenging all our Pioneers to code and build awesome projects that celebrate the outside world. And we were not disappointed! Congratulations to everyone who took part. Every entry was great and we loved them all.

We set the challenge to Make it outdoors, and our theme winners HH Squared really delivered! You best captured the spirit of what our challenge was asking with your fabulous, fun-looking project which used the outdoors to make it a success. HH Squared, we loved Pi Spy so much that we may have to make our own for Pi Towers! Congratulations on winning this award.

Watching all the entry videos, our judges had the tricky task of picking the top of the pops from among the projects. In additon to ‘theme winner’, we had a number of other categories to help make their job a little bit easier:

• We appreciate what you’re trying to do: We know that when tackling a digital making project, time and tech sometimes aren’t in your favour. But we still want to see what you’ve got up to, and this award category recognises that even though you haven’t fully realised your ambition yet, you’ve made a great start. *And*, when you do finish, we think it’s going to be awesome. Congratulations to the UTC Bullfrogs for winning this award – we can’t wait to see the final project!

• Inspiring journey: This category recognises that getting from where you’ve started to where you want to go isn’t always smooth sailing. Maybe teams had tech problems, maybe they had logistical problems, but the winners of this award did a great job of sharing the trials and tribulations they encountered along the way! Coding Doughnuts, your project was a little outside the box IN a box. We loved it.

• Technically brilliant: This award is in recognition of some serious digital making chops. Robot Apocalypse Committee, you owned this award. Get in!

• Best explanation: Digital making is an endeavour that involves making a thing, and then sharing that thing. The winners of this category did a great job of showing us exactly what they made, and how they made it. They also get bonus points for making a highly watchable, entertaining video. Uniteam, we got it. We totally got it! What a great explanation of such a wonderful project – and it made us laugh too. Well done!

The Judges’ Special Recognition Awards

Because we found it so hard to just pick five winners, the following teams will receive our Judges’ Special Recognition Award:

• PiChasers with their project Auqa (yes, the spelling is intentional!)

• Sunscreen Superstars, making sure we’re all protected in the glorious British sunshine

• Off The Shelf and their ingenious Underwater Canal Scanner

• Glassbox, who made us all want Nerf guns thanks to their project Tin Can Alley

• Turtle Tamers, ensuring the well-being of LEGO turtles around the world with their project Umbrella Empire

Winners from both our Make us laugh and Make it outdoors challenges will be joining us at Google HQ for a Pioneers summer camp full of making funtimes! They’ll also receive some amazing prizes to help them continue in their digital making adventures.

Massive thanks go to our judges for helping to pick the winners!

And for your next Pioneers challenge…

Ha, as if we’re going to tell you just yet – we’re still recovering from this challenge! We’ll be back in September to announce the theme of the next cycle – so make sure to sign up for our newsletter to be reminded closer to the time.

We at the Raspberry Pi Foundation find it incredibly rewarding to help people make and share things they love. It’s amazing to be part of an incredibly creative community of makers. And we’re not the only ones who feel this way: for this year’s Maker Faire UK, the team over at NUSTEM created the Heart of Maker Faire, a Pi-powered art installation that is a symbol of this unique community. And to be perfectly frank, it’s bloody gorgeous.

The Heart of Maker Faire

NUSTEM’s new installation for Maker Faire UK 2017, held on 1st & 2nd April at the Centre for Life, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Visitors wrote notes about things they love, and sealed them in jars. They then read their heart rates, and used the control boxes to associate their jar and heart rate with a space on the shelves.

A heart for the community

NUSTEM is a STEM outreach organisation from Northumbria University, and the makers there are always keen to build interactive projects that get people excited about technology. So at this year’s Faire, attendees passing their installation were invited to write down something close to their heart, put that note in a jar, and measure their heart rate. Then they could connect their heart rate, via a QR code, to a space on a shelf lined with LEDs. Once they placed the jar in their space, the LEDs started blinking to imitate their heart beat. With this art piece, the NUSTEM team wants to say something about “how we’re all individuals, but about our similarities too”.

NUSTEM on Twitter

Still beating. Heart of #MakerFaireUK

Making the heart beat

This is no small build – it uses more than 2,000 NeoPixel LEDs, as well as five Raspberry Pis, among other components. Two Pi 3s are in charge of registering people’s contributions and keeping track of their jars. A Pi Zero W acts as a central hub, connecting its bigger siblings via WiFi, and storing a MySQL database of the jars’ data. Finally, two more Pi 3s control the LEDs of the Heart via a script written in Processing. The NUSTEM team has made the code available here for you “to laugh at” (their words, not mine!)

The heart, ready to be filled with love

A heart for art

Processing is an open-source programming language used to create images, graphs, and animations. It can respond to keyboard and mouse input, so you can write games with it as well. Moreover, it runs on the Pi, and you can use it to talk to the Pi’s GPIO pins, as the Heart of Maker Faire team did. Hook up buttons, sensors, and LEDs, and get ready to create amazing interactive pieces of art! If you’d like to learn more, read Matt’s blog post, or watch the talk he gave about Processing at our fifth birthday party earlier this year.

Matt Richardson: Art with Processing on the Raspberry Pi – Raspberry Pi Birthday Event 2017 – Talks

Matt Richardson: Art with Processing on the Raspberry Pi Sunday 5th March 2017 Raspberry Pi Birthday Event 2017 Filmed and edited by David and Andrew Ferguson. This video is not an official video published by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. No copyright infringement intended.

To help you get started, we’re providing a free learning resource introducing you to the basics of Processing. We’d love to see what you create, so do share a link to your masterworks in the comments!

World Maker Faire

We’ll be attending World Maker Faire in New York on the 23rd and 24th of September. Will you be there?

This column is from The MagPi issue 58. You can download a PDF of the full issue for free, or subscribe to receive the print edition in your mailbox or the digital edition on your tablet. All proceeds from the print and digital editions help the Raspberry Pi Foundation achieve its charitable goals.

About five years ago was the first time I unboxed a Raspberry Pi. I hooked it up to our living room television and made space on the TV stand for an old USB keyboard and mouse. Watching the $35 computer boot up for the first time impressed me, and I had a feeling it was a big deal, but I’ll admit that I had no idea how much of a phenomenon Raspberry Pi would become. I had no idea how large the community would grow. I had no idea how much my life would be changed from that moment on. And it all started with a simple first step: booting it up.

Matt Richardson on Twitter

Finally a few minutes to experiment with @Raspberry_Pi! So far, I’m rather impressed!

The key to the success of Raspberry Pi as a computer – and, in turn, a community and a charitable foundation – is that there’s a low barrier to the first step you take with it. The low price is a big reason for that. Whether or not to try Raspberry Pi is not a difficult decision. Since it’s so affordable, you can just give it a go, and see how you get along.

The pressure is off

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system kernel, talked about this in a BBC News interview in 2012. He explained that a lot of people might take the first step with Raspberry Pi, but not everyone will carry on with it. But getting more people to take that first step of turning it on means there are more people who potentially will be impacted by the technology. Torvalds said:

I find things like Raspberry Pi to be an important thing: trying to make it possible for a wider group of people to tinker with computers. And making the computers cheap enough that you really can not only afford the hardware at a big scale, but perhaps more important, also afford failure.

In other words, if things don’t work out with you and your Raspberry Pi, it’s not a big deal, since it’s such an affordable computer.

In this together

Of course, we hope that more and more people who boot up a Raspberry Pi for the first time will decide to continue experimenting, creating, and learning with it. Thanks to improvements to the hardware, the Raspbian operating system, and free software packages, it’s constantly becoming easier to do many amazing things with this little computer. And our continually growing community means you’re not alone on this journey. These improvements and growth over the past few years hopefully encourage more people who boot up Raspberry Pis to keep exploring.

The first step

However, the important thing is that people are given the opportunity to take that first step, especially young people. Young learners are at a critical age, and something like the Raspberry Pi can have an enormously positive impact on the rest of their lives. It’s a major reason why our free resources are aimed at young learners. It’s also why we train educators all over the world for free. And encouraging youngsters to take their first step with Raspberry Pi could not only make a positive difference in their lives, but also in society at large.

With the affordable computational power, excellent software, supportive community, and free resources, you’re given everything you need to make a big impact in the world when you boot up a Raspberry Pi for the first time. That moment could be step one of ten, or one of ten thousand, but it’s up to you to take that first step.

Now you!

Learning and making things with the Pi is incredibly easy, and we’ve created numerous resources and tutorials to help you along. First of all, check out our hardware guide to make sure you’re all set up. Next, you can try out Scratch and Python, our favourite programming languages. Feeling creative? Learn to code music with Sonic Pi, or make visual art with Processing. Ready to control the real world with your Pi? Create a reaction game, or an LED adornment for your clothing. Maybe you’d like to do some science with the help of our Sense HAT, or become a film maker with our camera?

You can do all this with the Raspberry Pi, and so much more. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. So where do you want to start?

At the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we love a good music project. So of course we’re excited to welcome Andy Grove‘s ultrasonic piano to the collection! It is a thing of beauty… and noise. Don’t let the name fool you – this build can do so much more than sound like a piano.

Ultrasonic Pi Piano – Full Demo

The Ultrasonic Pi Piano uses HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors for input and generates MIDI instructions that are played by fluidsynth. For more information: http://theotherandygrove.com/projects/ultrasonic-pi-piano/

What’s an ultrasonic piano?

What we have here, people of all genders, is really a theremin on steroids. The build’s eight ultrasonic distance sensors detect hand movements and, with the help of an octasonic breakout board, a Raspberry Pi 3 translates their signals into notes. But that’s not all: this digital instrument is almost endlessly customisable – you can set each sensor to a different octave, or to a different instrument.

The breakout board designed by Andy

Andy has implemented gesture controls to allow you to switch between modes you have preset. In his video, you can see that holding your hands over the two sensors most distant from each other changes the instrument. Say you’re bored of the piano – try a xylophone! Not your jam? How about a harpsichord? Or a clarinet? In fact, there are 128 MIDI instruments and sound effects to choose from. Go nuts and compose a piece using tuba, ocarina, and the noise of a guitar fret!

How to build the ultrasonic piano

If you head over to Instructables, you’ll find the thorough write-up Andy has provided. He has also made all his scripts, written in Rust, available on GitHub. Finally, he’s even added a video on how to make a housing, so your ultrasonic piano can look more like a proper instrument, and less like a pile of electronics.

Ultrasonic Pi Piano Enclosure

Uploaded by Andy Grove on 2017-04-13.

Make your own!

If you follow us on Twitter, you may have seen photos and footage of the Raspberry Pi staff attending a Pi Towers Picademy. Like Andy*, quite a few of us are massive Whovians. Consequently, one of our final builds on the course was an ultrasonic theremin that gave off a sound rather like a dying Dalek. Take a look at our masterwork here! We loved our make so much that we’ve since turned the instructions for building it into a free resource. Go ahead and build your own! And be sure to share your compositions with us in the comments.

Sonic is feeling the groove as well

* He has a full-sized Dalek at home. I know, right?

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the 2017 ISTE Conference & Expo, which saw over 20,000 educators convene in San Antonio earlier this summer. As a new Raspberry Pi Foundation team member, I was thrilled to meet the many Raspberry Pi Certified Educators (RCEs) in attendance. They came from across the country to share their knowledge, skills, and advice with fellow educators interested in technology and digital making.

This is the only GIF. Honest.

Meet the RCEs

Out of the dozens of RCEs who attended, here are three awesome members of our community and their ISTE 2017 stories:

Nicholas Provenzano, Makerspace Director at University Liggett School and the original nerdy teacher, shared his ideas for designing innovative STEAM and maker projects. He also knocked our socks off by building his own digital badge using a Raspberry Pi Zero to stream tweets from the conference.

Andrew Collins on Twitter

What’s up w/ @Raspberry_Pi & digital making? Serious knowledge dropping at #ISTE17 #picademy

Amanda Haughs, TOSA Digital Innovation Coach in Campbell Union School District and digital learning champion, shared her ideas for engaging elementary school learners in technology and digital making. She also went next level with her ISTE swag, creating a wearable Raspberry Pi tote bag combining sewing and circuitry.

Amanda Haughs on Twitter

New post: “Pi Tote– a sewing and circuitry project w/the @Raspberry_Pi Zero W” https://t.co/Fb1IFZMH1n #picademy #Maker #ISTE17 #PiZeroW

Rafranz Davis, Executive Director of Professional and Digital Learning for Lufkin ISD and edtech leader extraordinaire, shared her vision for making innovation and digital learning more equitable and accessible for all. She also received the ISTE 2017 Award for Outstanding Leadership in recognition of her innovative work in education and in advancing student-driven learning as well as her efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion across learning environments.

EdSurge on Twitter

At #iste17, @rafranzdavis speaks about the privilege of access. How do we make innovation less privileged? #edtechc… https://t.co/6foMzgfE6f

Rafranz, Nicholas, and Amanda are all members of our original Picademy cohorts in the United States. Since summer 2016, more than 300 educators have attended US Picademy events and joined the RCE community. Be on the lookout later this year for our 2018 season events and sign up here for updates.

The Foundation at ISTE 2017

Oh, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation team was also at ISTE 2017 and we’re not too shabby either : ). We held a Raspberry Jam, which saw some fantastic projects from Raspberry Pi Certified Educators — the Raspberry Pi Preserve Jar from Heidi Baynes, Scratch student projects from Bradley Quentin and Kimberly Boyce, and Sense HAT activities with Efren Rodriguez.

But that’s not all we got up to! You can learn more about our team’s presentations — including on how to send a Raspberry Pi to near space — on our ISTE conference page here.

Raspberry Pi on Twitter

Our #ISTE17 crew had a PACKED day in San Antonio. If you didn’t catch them today, see where they’ll be: https://t.co/Rt0ec7PF7S

Join the fold

Inspired by all this education goodness? You can become a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator as well! All you need to do is attend one of our free two-day Picademy courses held across the US and UK. Join this amazing community of more than 1,000 teachers, librarians, and volunteers, and help more people learn about digital making.

If you’re interested in what our RCEs do at Picademy, check out our free online courses. These are available to anyone, and you can use them to learn about teaching coding and physical computing from the comfort of your home.

While the rest of us are forced to leave the house to obtain a tasty brew, beer master Christoper Aedo has incorporated a Raspberry Pi into his home brewing system for ultimate ‘sit-back-and-relax’ home-brew home brew.

KEG! KEG! KEG! KEG!

I drink and I know things

Having brewed his own beer for several years, Christopher was no novice in the pursuit of creating the perfect pint*. He was already brewing 10 gallons at a time when he decided to go all electric with a Raspberry Pi. Inspiration struck when he stumbled upon the StrangeBrew Elsinore Java server, and he went to work planning the best setup for the job:

Before I could talk myself out of the project, I decided to start buying parts. My basic design was a Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) and boil kettle with 5500W heating elements in them, plus a mash tun with a false bottom. I would use a pump to recirculate the mash through a 50 foot stainless coil in the HLT (a “heat exchanger recirculating mash system”, known as HERMS). I would need a second pump to circulate the water in the HLT, and to help with transferring water to the mash tun. All of the electrical components would be controlled with a Raspberry Pi.

Home-brew hardware setup

First, he set up the electrical side of his home-brew system using The Electric Brewing Company‘s walkthrough, swapping out the 12V solid-state relays for ones that manage the 3V needed by the Pi. Aedo then implemented the temperature sensors and controls of these relays. He used Hilitchi DS18B20 Waterproof Temperature Sensors connected to a 1-Wire bus and learned how to manage the relays in this tutorial.

Christopher wanted to be able to move his system around his property. Therefore, he squeezed all the electrical components of the build into a waterproof project box. For cooling purposes, he integrated copper shims and heat sinks.

Among the wires, wires, and more wires sits a Raspberry Pi, bottom left.

A brew-tiful build

With the hardware sorted, he took on the project’s software next. Although he had been inspired by it, Christopher decided to move away from the StrangeBrew Elsinore project in favour of the Python-based CraftBeerPi by active repo maintainer Manuel Fritsch.

The CraftBeerPi dashboard

This package allowed him to configure his chosen GPIO pins and set up the appropriate sensors. In fact, the setup process was so easy that Christoper also implemented a secondhand fridge as a fermentation chamber.

Duff Beer for me, Duff Beer for you…

In his recently released article on opensource.com, Aedo goes into far more detail. So if you want to create your own brewing kit, it offers all the info you need to get going.

Christoper attributes a lot of his build to the Hosehead, Electric Brewery, and CraftBeerPi projects. Using their resources and those of StrangeBrew Elsinore, any home brewer can control at least part of their system via a Raspberry Pi. Moreover, they can also keep track of their brewery stock levels via the wonderfully named Kegerface display.

We love seeing projects like this that take inspiration from others and build on them. We also love beer.

How about you? Have you created any sort of beer brewing system, from scratch or with the help of an existing project? Then make sure to share it with us in the comments below.

*Did you know the British pint is larger than the American pint?

Raspberry Pis, blinking lights, and APIs – what’s not to love? It’s really not surprising that the NYC Train Sign caught our attention – and it doesn’t hurt that its creators’ Instagram game is 👌 on point.

NYC Train Sign

NYC Train Sign. 158 likes · 2 talking about this. Live MTA train wait times signage.

Another transport sign?

Yes, yes, I know. Janina wrote about a bus timetable display only the other day. But hear me out, I have a totally legitimate reason why we’re covering this project as well…

…it’s just a really pretty-looking build, alright?

Public transport: a brief explanation

If you’ve been to New York City, or indeed have visited any busy metropolis, you’ll probably have braved the dread conveyor belt of empty-eyed masses that is…dundunduuun…public transport. Whenever you use it, unless you manage to hit that off-peak sweet spot (somewhere between 14.30 and 14.34) where the flow of human traffic is minimal, you are exposed to a hellish amalgam of rushing bodies, yells to ‘hold the door’, and the general funk of tight-packed public situations. Delicious.

To be fair, Kramer has bad train etiquette

As APIs for public transport websites are becoming increasingly common and user-friendly, we’re seeing a rise in the number of transport-related builds. From Dr Lucy Rogers’ #WhereIsMyBus 3D-printed London icon to the VästtraPi bus departure screen mentioned above, projects using these APIs allow us respite from the throng and save us from waiting for delayed buses at drab and dreary stations.

image c/o Dr Lucy Rogers

We’ve seen a lot of bus builds, but have we seen train builds yet? Anyone? I’ll check: ‘Train your rat’, ‘Picademy teacher training’, ‘How to train your…’ Nope, I think this is the first. Maybe I’m wrong though, in which case please let me know in the comments.

NYC Train Sign

Let me see if I can get this right: the NYC Train Sign-building team at NYC Train Sign has created a real-time NYC train sign using a Raspberry Pi, LED matrix, and locally 3D-printed parts at their base in Brooklyn, NYC (…train sign – shoot!)

The NYC Train Sign…so so pretty

The team, headed by creator Timothy Wu, uses the official NTA server API to fetch real-time arrival, departure, and delay information to display on their signs. They also handcraft the signs to fit your specifications (click here to buy your own). How very artisanal!

Do the BART(man)

As a result of the success of the NYC Train Sign, the team is now experimenting with signs for other transport services, including the San Francisco BART, Chicago CTA, and Boston MBTA. APIs are also available for services in other cities around the world, for example London and Los Angeles. We could probably do with a display like this in our London office! In fact, if you commute on public transport and can find the right API, I think one of these devices would be perfect for your workplace no matter where it is.

Using APIs

Given our free resources for a Tweeting Babbage and a…location marker poo (?!), it’s clear that at the Raspberry Pi Foundation we’re huge fans of using APIs in digital making projects. Therefore, it’s really no surprise that we like sharing them as well! So if you’ve created a project using an API, we’d love to see it. Pop a link into the comments below, or tag us on social media.

Now back to their Instagram game

Honestly, their photos are so aesthetically pleasing that I’m becoming a little jealous.

making of real-time nyc mta signs with raspberry pi in bushwick . as seen @kcbcbeer @fathersbk @houdinikitchenlab @dreammachinecreative @hihellobk . 3d-printing @3dbrooklyn vectors @virilemonarch . . #nyc #mta #subwaysystem #nycsubway #subway #metro #nycsubway #train #subwaysigns #3dprinting #3dmodel #3dprinter #3dprinting #3dprints #3d #newyorkcity #manhattan #brooklyn #bushwick #bronx #raspberrypi #code #javascript #php #sql #python #subwayart #subwaygraffiti

121 Likes, 4 Comments – @nyctrainsign on Instagram: “making of real-time nyc mta signs with raspberry pi in bushwick . as seen @kcbcbeer @fathersbk…”