If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you bagged yourself a brand-new Raspberry Pi for Christmas, and you’re wondering what you should do next.

Well, look no further, for we’re here to show you the ropes. So, sit back, pull on a pair of those nice, warm socks that you found in your stocking, top up your eggnog, and let’s get started.

Do I need an operating system?

Unless your Raspberry Pi came in a kit with a preloaded SD card, you’ll need to download an operating system. Find a microSD card (you may have one lurking in an old phone) and click here to download the latest version of Raspbian, our dedicated Raspberry Pi operating system.

To get Raspbian onto the microSD card, use free online software such as Etcher. Here’s a video from The MagPi magazine to show you how to do it.

Use Etcher to install operating systems onto an SD card

Lucy Hattersley shows you how to install Raspberry Pi operating systems such as Raspbian onto an SD card, using the excellent Etcher. For more tutorials, check out The MagPi at http://magpi.cc ! Don’t want to miss an issue? Subscribe, and get every issue delivered straight to your door.

Turn it on!

Here, this video should help:

How to set up your Raspberry Pi || Getting started with #RaspberryPi

Learn #howto set up your Raspberry Pi for the first time, from plugging in peripherals to setting up #Raspbian.

Insert your microSD card into your Raspberry Pi. The microSD card slot should be fairly easy to find, and you need to make sure that you insert it with the contact side facing the board. If you feel like you’re having to force it in, you have it the wrong way round.

Next, plug your HDMI cable into the Raspberry Pi and your chosen HDMI display. This could be a computer monitor or your home television.

If you’re using a Raspberry Pi Zero or Raspberry Pi Zero W, you’ll need a mini HDMI to HDMI cable or adapter.

If you’re using a Raspberry Pi 4, you’ll need a micro HDMI to HDMI cable or adapter.

Next, plug in any peripherals that you want to use, such as a mouse or keyboard.

Lastly, plug your power cable into your Raspberry Pi. This is any standard micro USB cable (if you have an Android phone, check your phone charger!), or a USB-C power cable if you’re using the Raspberry Pi 4.

Most kits will come with all of the cables and adapters that you need, so look in the box first before you start rummaging around your home for spare cables.

Once the power cable is connected, your Raspberry Pi will turn on. If it doesn’t, check that your SD card is inserted correctly and your cables are pushed in fully.

Still in doubt? Here’s Sally Le Page with more:

How to use a Raspberry Pi ft. Dr Sally Le Page

What is a Raspberry Pi and what do you need to get started? Our ‘How to use a Raspberry Pi’ explainer will take you through the basics of your #RaspberryPi, and how you can get hands-on with Raspbian and #coding language tools such as Scratch and Mu, with our host, Dr Sally Le Page.

Once on, the Raspberry Pi will direct you through a setup process that allows you to change your password and connect to your local wireless network.

And then, you’re good to go!

Now what?

Now what? Well, that depends on what you want to do with your Raspberry Pi.

Many people use their Raspberry Pi to learn how to code. If you’re new to coding, we suggest trying out a few of our easy online projects to help you understand the basics of Scratch — the drag-and-drop coding platform from MIT — and Python — a popular general-purpose programming language and the reason for the “Pi” in Raspberry Pi’s name.

Maybe you want to use your Raspberry Pi to set up control of smart devices in your home, or build a media centre for all your favourite photos and home movies. Perhaps you want to play games on your Raspberry Pi, or try out various HATs and add-ons to create fun digital making projects.

Whatever you want to do with your Raspberry Pi, the internet is full of brilliant tutorials from the Raspberry Pi Foundation and online creators.

Some places to start

• Visit our Projects site to try cool digital projects using the Raspberry Pi
• Download free copies of The MagPi magazine and our project books to fire up your creativity
• Read our blog for great examples of community builds from around the world
• Join our forums to meet other Raspberry Pi users and find the answers to your burning questions
• Follow us on Twitter to see the projects by our followers that we love and share
• Look for your local Raspberry Jam to meet other makers in your area and see what they’re making with their Raspberry Pi

Get involved with the Raspberry Pi Foundation

From community events and magazines to online learning and space exploration – there are so many ways to get involved with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

The Raspberry Pi community is huge, and spreads across the entire globe, bringing people together to share their love of coding, digital making, and computer education. However you use your Raspberry Pi, know that, by owning it, you’ve helped the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation to grow, bringing more opportunities to kids and teachers all over the world. So, from the bottom of our hearts this festive season, thank you.

We can’t wait to see what 2020 brings!

 

A few of our favourite online makers decided to take part in a makers’ Secret Santa, producing home-made gifts based on their skills. So, OBVIOUSLY, Estefannie used a Raspberry Pi. Thanks, Estefannie.

HOW I HACKED INSTAGRAM FOR MY SECRET SANTA // MAKE SOMETHING

I got in a Maker Secret Santa this year so I decided to make a thing and hack Instagram for it. #YTMakersSecretSanta MAKERS SECRET SANTA! FOLLOW EVERYONE: Kids Invent Stuff https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-glo52BMvZH9PPUamjGIcw Colin Furze https://www.youtube.com/user/colinfurze The Hacksmithhttps://www.youtube.com/user/MstrJames Look Mum No Computer https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCafxR2HWJRmMfSdyZXvZMTw Sufficiently Advanced https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVS89U86PwqzNkK2qYNbk5A Subscribe to my channel if you’d like to be the first to know when I publish the next video :) Let me know what other videos you would like to see.

In the video above, Estefannie uses a Raspberry Pi to hack Instagram to illuminate a handmade freeform circuit whenever Kids Invent Stuff gains a like on a post.

“But why not use the Instagram API?”, I hear you cry. Well, as Estefannie explains, she wanted the gift to be a surprise, and if she had used the Instagram API, she would have had to have asked them for their details in order to access it.

Watch to the end of the video to see the gift that Estefannie received from her Secret Santa, a certain Colin Furze. You can see his complete build video for the Cat-o-Matic below.

CAT-O-MATIC auto cat feeder/terrifier YTMakers Secret Santa

Fear not your cat feeding issues are sorted………..Furzestyle No cat was harmed in making of this but it did run off……….but came back and is fine. Thanks to the Kids Invent Stuff channel for organising this Secret Santa check them out here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-glo52BMvZH9PPUamjGIcw And the other channels involved Estefannie Explains https://www.youtube.com/user/estefanniegg Sufficiently Advanced https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVS89U86PwqzNkK2qYNbk5A Look Mum No Computer https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCafxR2HWJRmMfSdyZXvZMTw The Hacksmiths https://www.youtube.com/user/MstrJames Check out the new FURZE Merch store.

You might have a baby/dog/hamster that you want to keep an eye on when you’re not there. We understand: they’re lovely, especially hamsters. Here’s how HackSpace magazine contributor Dr Andrew Lewis built a Raspberry Pi baby cam to watch over his small creatures…

Wireless baby monitors

You can get wireless baby monitors that have a whole range of great features for making sure your little ones are safe, sound, and sleeping happily, but they come with a hefty price tag.

In this article, you’ll find out how to make a Raspberry Pi-powered streaming camera, and combine it with a built-in I²C sensor pack that monitors temperature, pressure, and humidity. You’ll also see how you can use the GPIO pins on Raspberry Pi to turn an LED night light on and off using a web interface.

The hardware for this project is quite simple, and involves minimal soldering, but the first thing you need to do is to install Raspbian onto a microSD card for your Raspberry Pi. If you’re planning on doing a headless install, you’ll also need to enable SSH by creating an empty file called SSH on the root of the Raspbian install, and a file with your wireless LAN details called wpa_supplicant.conf.

You can download the code for this as well as the 3D-printable files from our GitHub. You’ll need to transfer the code to the Raspberry Pi. Next, connect the camera, the BME280 board, and the LEDs to the Raspberry Pi, as shown in the circuit diagram.

Insert the microSD card into the Raspberry Pi and boot up. If everything is working OK, you should be able to see the IP address for your device listed on your hub or router, and you should be able to connect to it via SSH. If you don’t see the Raspberry Pi listed, check your wireless connection details and make sure your adapter is supplying enough power. It’s worth taking the time to assign your Raspberry Pi with a static IP address on your network, so it can’t change its IP address unexpectedly.

Smile for Picamera

Use the raspi-config application to enable the camera interface and the I²C interface. If you’re planning on modifying the code yourself, we recommend enabling VNC access as well, because it will make editing and debugging the code once the device is put together much easier. All that remains on the software side is to update APT, download the babycam.py script, install any dependencies with PIP, and set the script to run automatically. The main dependencies for the babycam.py script are the RPi.bme280 module, Flask, PyAudio, picamera, and NumPy. Chances are that these are already installed on your system by default, with the exception of RPi.bme280, which can be installed by typing sudo pip3 install RPi.bme280 from the terminal. Once all of the dependencies are present, load up the script and give it a test run, and point your web browser at port 8000 on the Raspberry Pi. You should see a webpage with a camera image, controls for the LED lights, and a read-out of the temperature, pressure, and humidity of the room.

The easiest way to get the babycam.py script to run on boot is to add a line to the rc.local file. Assuming that the babycam.py file is located in your home directory, you should add the line python3 /home/pi/babycam.py to the rc.local file, just before the line that reads exit 0. It’s very important that you include the ampersand at the end of the line, otherwise the Python script will not be run in a separate process, the rc.local file will never complete, and your Raspberry Pi will never boot.

Tinned Raspberry Pi

With the software and hardware working, you can start putting the case together. You might need to scale the 3D models to suit the tin can you have before you print them out, so measure your tin before you click Print. You’ll also want to remove any inner lip from the top of the can using a can opener, and make a small hole in the side of the can near the bottom for the USB power cable. Next, make a hole in the bottom of the can for the LED cables to pass through.

If you haven’t already done so, solder appropriate leads to your LEDs, and don’t forget to put a 330 Ω resistor in-line on the positive side. The neck of the camera is supported by two lengths of aluminium armature wire. Push the wire up through each of the printed neck pieces, and use a clean soldering iron to weld the pieces together in the middle. Push the neck into the printed top section, and weld into place with a soldering iron from underneath. Be careful not to block the narrow slot with plastic, as this is where the camera cable passes up through the neck and into the camera.

Paint the tin can and the 3D-printed parts. We found that spray blackboard paint gives a good effect on 3D-printed parts, and PlastiKote stone effect paint made the tin can look a little more tactile than a flat colour. Once the paint is dry, pass the camera cable up through the slot in the neck, and then apply the heat-shrink tubing to cover the neck with a small gap at the top and bottom. Connect the camera to the top of the cable, and push the front piece on to hold it into place. Glue shouldn’t be necessary, but a little hot glue might help if the front parts don’t hold together well.

Push the power cable through the hole in the case, and secure it with a knot and some hot glue. Leave enough cable free to easily remove the top section from the can in future without stressing the wires.

This is getting heavy

Glue the bottom section onto the can with hot glue, and hot-glue the LEDs into place on the bottom, feeding the cable up through the hole and into the GPIO header. This is a good time to hot-glue a weight into the bottom of the can to improve its stability. I used an old weight from some kitchen scales, but any small weight should be fine. Finally, fix the Raspberry Pi into place on the top piece by either drilling or gluing, then reconnect the rest of the cables, and push the 3D-printed top section into the tin can. If the top section is too loose, you can add a little bit of hot glue to hold things together once you know everything is working.

That should be all of the steps complete. Plug in the USB and check the camera from a web browser. The babycam.py script includes video, sensors, and light control. If you are using the optional USB microphone, you can expand the functionality of the app to include audio streaming, use cry detection to activate the LEDs (don’t make the LEDs too stimulating or you’ll never get a night’s sleep again), or maybe even add a Bluetooth speaker and integrate a home assistant.

HackSpace magazine issue 26

HackSpace magazine is out now, available in print from your local newsagent, the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, and online from Raspberry Pi Press.

If you love HackSpace magazine as much as we do, why not have a look at the subscription offers available, including the 12-month deal that comes with a free Adafruit Circuit Playground!

And, as always, you can download the free PDF here.

We’re always going to beat the drum for projects that seek to improve the lives of people with disabilities. That’s why we fell in love with the Airdrum, which was created to allow anyone, in particular people with disabilities, to play a musical instrument.

The Airdrum – speaker and MIDI song demo

This video demonstrates the speaker functionality with playing a song from a midi file on the Raspberry pi using Fluidsynth. (The hand movement is just for fun) The Airdrum is powered by a power supply for demonstration purposes.

Raspberry Pi Airdrum

Designed by two Dutch electrical engineering students, Alessandro Verdiesen and Luuk van Kuijk, the project came to life during their first year at university. “We aimed to develop a musical instrument that could be used to generate music by moving,” explains Alessandro, who has recently been working on a fully modular version 2.0.

After speaking with therapists and health care institutions, the pair decided to make a drum that could be played by moving objects above a set of panels and they put Raspberry Pi at its heart. “The basic functionality of the Airdrum is to detect the distance of an object above each connected panel and play a sound,” says Alessandro. “These panels contain IR distance sensors and coloured LEDs for visual feedback.”

Sorting the bass-ics

From the outset, Alessandro and Luuk needed their project to be accessible, affordable, adjustable and, in the latest iteration, modular, with each drummable section containing an Arduino Mini, an IR sensor, and LEDs. They also wanted the instrument to have a broader appeal and be suitable for everybody, including professional musicians, so it had to sound as good as it played.

“We needed it to be as versatile as it can be and allow people to choose custom sounds, colours, and lights while being a standalone instrument and a multi-purpose input/output device,” Alessandro reveals. To make it easy to place the modules together, they used magnetic connections between the panels. This allowed them to be placed together in various configurations, with a minimum of two per Airdrum.

With a structured plan that divided milestones into electrical, mechanical, and software components, the pair used 3D printing for the enclosure, which allowed rapid prototyping for quick interactions. They used speaker panels to bookend the modules for auditive feedback.

Panel beating

Each of the panels includes a buck converter so that the current through the connectors can be drawn to a minimum. The master module panel contains Raspberry Pi 3 running custom programs written in C and Python, as well as the free, open-source software synthesiser FluidSynth. It connects to the other panels through I2C, constantly polling the panels for their measurements and for the configuration of their colour.

“If an object has been detected, the Raspberry Pi generates a sound and outputs it on the AUX audio jack,” says Alessandro. “This output is then used by the mono D-class amplifiers in the speaker panels to make the tones audible.”

The pair chose Raspberry Pi because of its versatility and technical prowess. “The Airdrum needed something powerful enough to run software to generate audio through MIDI using the input from the panels and the Raspberry Pi is a great universal and low-cost development board with integrated DAC for audio,” explains Alessandro. “It also has a I2C bus to act as a data transfer master unit and they’re compact enough to fit inside of the casing. The Raspberry Pi enables easy implementation of future upgrades, too.”

Indeed, the pair want to explore the MIDI possibilities and connect the Airdrum with a smartphone or tablet. An app is being planned, as is a built-in synthesiser. “The people we have shown the Airdrum to have been very enthusiastic,” Alessandro says. “That has been very motivating.”

Read The MagPi for free!

There’s loads more amazing projects and tutorials in The MagPi #89, out today, including our 50 tools and tips for makers, and a huge accessory guide! You can get The MagPi #89 online at our store, or in print from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge and all good newsagents and supermarkets. You can also access The MagPi magazine via our Android and iOS apps.

Don’t forget our amazing subscription offers either, which include a free gift of a Raspberry Pi Zero W when you subscribe for twelve months.

And, as with all our Raspberry Pi publications, you can download the free PDF from our website.

Do you need to run a script whenever your Raspberry Pi turns on? Here’s Estefannie to explain how to edit crontab to do exactly that.

How to start a script at start-up on a Raspberry Pi // LEARN SOMETHING

Do you want your Raspberry Pi to automatically run your code when it is connected to power? Then you are in the right place. In this new #LEARNSOMETHING video I show you how to make you Raspberry Pi run your script automatically when it is connected to a power source.

Running script on startup

While there are many ways of asking your Raspberry Pi to run a script on start-up, crontab -e is definitely one of the easiest.

AND, as Estefannie explains (in part thanks to me bugging asking her to do so), if you create a run folder on your desktop, you can switch out the Python scripts you want to run at start-up whenever you like and will never have to edit crontab again!

Weeeeee!

Now go write some wonderful and inspiring festive scripts while I take a well-earned nap. I just got off a plane yet here I am, writing blog posts for y’all because I love you THAT DARN MUCH!

And don’t forget to like and subscribe for more Estefannie Explains it All goodness!

What, your Christmas tree ISN’T touch-enabled?

Capacitive Touch Christmas Tree How To | Raspberry Pi | Bare Conductive Pi Cap

Turn your Christmas tree into a capacitive touch-interactive musical instrument using a Raspberry Pi and a Bare Conductive Pi Cap. You’ll be rocking around the Christmas tree in no time! /* Bare Conductive */ Pi Cap: https://www.bareconductive.com/shop/pi-cap/ Touch Board: https://www.bareconductive.com/shop/touch-board/ Code: https://github.com/BareConductive/picap-touch-mp3-py #RasberryPi #BareConductive #Christmas

Using the Bare Conductive Pi Cap, Davy Wybiral hooked up his fairy lights and baubles to a Raspberry Pi. The result? Musical baubles that allow the user to play their favourite festive classics at the touch of a finger. These baubles are fantastic, and it’s easy to make your own. Just watch the video for Davy’s how-to.

The code for Bare Conductive’s Pi Cap polyphonic touch MP3 utility can be found in this GitHub repo, and you can pick up a Pi Cap on the Bare Conductive website. Then all you need to do is hook up your favourite tree decorations to the Pi Cap via insulated wires, and you’re good to go. It’s OK if your decorations aren’t conductive: you’ll actually be touching the wires and not the ornaments themselves.

And don’t worry about touching the wires, it’s perfectly safe. But just in this instance. Please don’t make a habit of touching wires.

Make sure to subscribe to Davy on YouTube (we did) and give him a like for the baubles video. Also, leave a comment to tell him how great it is, because nice comments are lovely, and we should all be leaving as many of them as we can on the videos for our favourite creators.

Synthesiser? Synthesizer? Whichever it is*, check out this video of Floyd Steinberg showing how he set up his Raspberry Pi as one of them.

How to use a Raspberry PI as a synthesizer

How to use a Raspberry PI as a synthesizer. Table of contents below! The Raspberry PI is a popular card-sized computer. In this video, I show how to set up a Raspberry PI V3 as a virtual analog synthesizer with keyboard and knobs for realtime sound tweaking, using standard MIDI controllers and some very minor shell script editing.

“In this video,” Floyd explains on YouTube, “I show how to set up a Raspberry Pi 3 as a virtual analogue synthesiser with keyboard and knobs for real-time sound tweaking, using standard MIDI controllers and some very minor shell script editing. The result is a battery-powered mini synth creating quite impressive sounds!”

We know a fair few of you (Raspberry Pi staff included) love dabbling in the world of Raspberry Pi synth sound, so be sure to watch the video to see what Floyd gets up to while turning a Raspberry Pi 3 into a virtual analogue synthesiser.

Be sure to check out Floyd’s other videos for more synthy goodness, and comment on his video if you’d like him to experiment further with Raspberry Pi. (The answer is yes, yes we would 🙏🙌)

 

*[Editor’s note: it’s spelled with a z in US English, and with an s in UK English. You’re welcome, Alex.]

TL;DR: we made a fully automated luxury gay space communist type-in-listing book. Buy it now and get it in time for Christmas.

Back in the dawn of time, in the late 1980s, I grew up on a diet of type-in computer game listings. From the BBC Micro User Guide, to The Micro User magazine, to the ubiquitous Usborne books: an hour or two of painstaking copying and a little imagination would provide you with an experience which wasn’t a million miles away from what you could buy on the shelves of your local computer store.

The simple act of typing in a game helped to familiarise you with a programming language (usually a dialect of BASIC), and by making mistakes you could start to understand what other, more intentional changes might accomplish. Some of the earliest games I wrote started off as heavily modified versions of type-in listings; in fact, one of these made a sneaky reappearance on this blog last year.

Fast forward to the present day, and aside from regular appearances in our own MagPi and Wireframe magazines, type-in listings have faded from view. Commercial games, even casual ones, have become much more sophisticated, beyond what you might expect to be able to enter into a computer in a reasonable amount of time. At the same time, tools like Unity remove the need to develop every title from the ground up.

But there’s still a lot to be said for the immediacy of the type-in experience. Three years ago, we asked ourselves whether we could make a type-in game listing book for the modern era. The end result, of which we’re launching the first volume today, is Code the Classics. David Crookes and Liz Upton will take you behind the scenes of the creation of five classic arcade games, and then I’ll show you how to implement a simple Python game inspired by each one.

Developing retro arcade games has been a hobby of mine since those early BBC Micro days, and I spent many happy evenings developing these titles, ably assisted by Andrew Gillett and Sean Tracey. It was important to us that these games be as close as possible to the standard of modern commercial casual games. With this in mind, we invited Dan Malone, famous among many other things for his work with The Bitmap Brothers, to provide graphics, and long-time game audio pro Allister Brimble to provide music and sound effects. I’ve known Dan for nearly twenty years, and have admired Allister’s work since childhood; it was an enormous pleasure to work with them, and we took the opportunity to snag interviews with them both, which you’ll also find in the book. Here’s Dan to offer you a taster.

Meet the artist behind Code the Classics

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://rpf.io/ytsub Help us reach a wider audience by translating our video content: http://rpf.io/yttranslate Buy a Raspberry Pi from one of our Approved Resellers: http://rpf.io/ytproducts Find out more about the #RaspberryPi Foundation: Raspberry Pi http://rpf.io/ytrpi Code Club UK http://rpf.io/ytccuk Code Club International http://rpf.io/ytcci CoderDojo http://rpf.io/ytcd Check out our free online training courses: http://rpf.io/ytfl Find your local Raspberry Jam event: http://rpf.io/ytjam Work through our free online projects: http://rpf.io/ytprojects Do you have a question about your Raspberry Pi?

We’ve pushed the boat out on the production values for the book itself too: think of it as an object from a parallel universe where Usborne made luxury hardbound coffee-table type-in listing books rather than paperbacks.

So although, like all our books, you can download this one for free, you’ll really want a physical copy of Code the Classics to have, and to hold, and to leave on your bedside table to club intruders with.

And while the listings are rather long, and fully-commented versions are available on GitHub, perhaps you should think about spending a rainy afternoon actually typing one in.

Check out Super Make Something’s awesome NeoPixel LED mirror: a 576 RGB LED display that converts images via the Raspberry Pi Camera Module and Raspberry Pi 3B+ into a pixelated light show.

Neopixel LED Mirror (Python, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, 3D Printing, Laser Cutting!) DIY How To

Time to pull out all the stops for the biggest Super Make Something project to date! Using 3D printing, laser cutting, a Raspberry Pi, computer vision, Python, and nearly 600 Neopixel LEDs, I build a low resolution LED mirror that displays your reflection on a massive 3 foot by 3 foot grid made from an array of 24 by 24 RGB LEDs!

Mechanical mirrors

If you’re into cool uses of tech, you may be aware of Daniel Rozin, the creative artist building mechanical mirrors out of wooden panels, trash, and…penguins, to name but a few of his wonderful builds.

A digital mechanical mirror?

Inspired by Daniel Rozin’s work, Alex, the person behind Super Make Something, put an RGB LED spin on the concept, producing this stunning mirror that thoroughly impressed visitors at Cleveland Maker Faire last month.

“Inspired by Danny Rozin’s mechanical mirrors, this 3 foot by 3 foot mirror is powered by a Raspberry Pi, and uses Python and OpenCV computer vision libraries to process captured images in real time to light up 576 individual RGB LEDs!” Alex explains on Instagram. “Also onboard are nearly 600 3D-printed squares to diffuse the light from each NeoPixel, as well as 16 laser-cut panels to hold everything in place!”

The video above gives a brilliantly detailed explanation of how Alex made the, so we highly recommend giving it a watch if you’re feeling inspired to make your own.

Seriously, we really want to make one of these for Raspberry Pi Towers!

As always, be sure to subscribe to Super Make Something on YouTube and leave a comment on the video if, like us, you love the project. Most online makers are producing content such as this with very little return on their investment, so every like and subscriber really does make a difference.

If there’s one thing we Brits love, it’s an ugly Christmas sweater. Jim Bennett, a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, has taken his ugly sweater game to the next level by adding IoT-controlled, Twitter-connected LEDs thanks to a Raspberry Pi Zero.

IoT is Fun for Everyone! (Ugly Sweater Edition)

An Ugly Sweater is great-but what’s even better (https://aka.ms/IoTShow/UglySweater) is an IoT-enabled Ugly Sweater. In this episode of the IoT Show, Olivier Bloch is joined by Jim Bennett, a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. Jim has built an Ugly Sweater using Azure IoT Central, Microsoft’s IoT app platform, and a Raspberry Pi Zero.

Jim upgraded his ugly sweater to become IoT-compatible using Microsoft’s IoT app platform Azure IoT Central, Adafruit’s programmable NeoPixel LED Dots Strand and, of course, our sweet baby, the Raspberry Pi Zero W.

After sewing the LED strand into the ugly sweater and connecting it to Raspberry Pi Zero, Jim was able to control the colour of the LEDs. Taking it one step further, he then built a list of commands within Azure IoT Central and linked the Raspberry Pi Zero to a Twitter account to create the IoT element of the project.

Watch the video above for full details on the project, and find all the code on Github.