Raspberry Pi is a UK Non Profit with the goal of creating a new generation of computer programmers. Observing how the UK Tech Industry was kickstarted by the availability in the 1980s of relatively cheap, very programmable computers such as the ZX81, the Commodore and the BBC Micro, the Raspberry Pi Foundation designed a £15/$25 computer which encourages the user to play and to learn. Although intended for schools, it has also been adopted by hackers and geeks, and a whole ecosystem of software and hardware is being built around the Pi. With a million boards now sold, the goal of the Foundation is well underway.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1
Computer-Controlled Slot Car Racing 3
Obtaining a Slot Car Racer 4
Hacking Your Slot Car Racer 4
Testing Your Slot Car Racer Hack 6
Getting the Player Input 7
Making the Joystick Buttons 7
Boxing It Up 12
Joystick Testing 16
The Software 18
The Game 20
Over to You 27
CHAPTER 2
Facebook-Enabled Roto-Sketch 29
The Concept 30
Rotary Encoder Types 30
The Encoder Output 31
Posting to Facebook 40
Using Flickr 40
The Final Roto-Sketch Program 44
Creating a Symmetrical Pattern 50
Over to You 56
CHAPTER 3
The Pendulum Pi, a Harmonograph 59
The Concept 61
The Hall Effect 61
Enter the Arduino 63
Putting It Together 64
Smooth Swinging 69
Electronics 71
Programming the Arduino 76
The Final Arduino Code 81
Programming the Pi 89
Using the Pendulum Pi 94
Over to You 96
APPENDIX A
Getting Your Raspberry Pi Up and Running 97
The Operating System 98
Getting the OS on an SD Card 99
Premade Cards 99
Creating Your Own SD Card 100
Connecting Your Raspberry Pi 104
Connecting a Display 106
Connecting via HDMI 107
Connecting via DVI 107
Connecting via VGA 109
Connecting via Composite 109
Connecting to a Network 110
Booting the Operating System 111
Powering Up! 113
The Boot Process 114
Starting the Graphical Desktop 114
Starting a Terminal under X 115
Troubleshooting 115
Common Problems 115
No Lights Come On 115
Only the Red Light Comes On 116
No Monitor Output 116
Intermittent Problems 116
Power Problems 116
If You Need More Help 117
Let the Fun Begin! 118
APPENDIX B
Introductory Software Project: The Insult Generator 119
Running Your First Python Program 120
Saving Your Program 123
Generating an Insult 126
Variables 126
Strings 127
Lists 127
Functions 128
Insult Your Friends by Name! 129
Conditional Behaviour 131
Create a Stream of Insults! 131
Making Your Own Functions 131
Creating Loops 132
for Loop 133
while Statement 134
Putting It All Together 135
About the Author :
Dr Andrew Robinson (Manchester, UK) worked at the University of Manchester School of Computer Science, where they have just launched the Great British Raspberry Pi Bake Off, a competition to get people making projects with the Pi. Andrew has quickly become a leading expert on the Pi and its astounding capabilities, including guest posts on raspberrypi.org, the official mouthpiece of Raspberry Pi. He is the creator of PiFace, which makes interfacing with the Raspberry Pi significantly easier. He is currently utilizing the Raspberry Pi as part of the team behind the BBC’s Springwatch.
Mike Cook is is the co-author of Raspberry Pi For Dummies. Mike is a veteran tech author and a freelance consultant for all things to do with Physical Computing. A former Lecturer in Physics at Manchester Metropolitan University, he has written more than three hundred computing and electronics articles for the pages of computer magazines since the 1980s. Mike patrols the forums as Grumpy Mike, though he is anything but!
