Update: We’ve got them in the Maker Shed!
This morning, the Raspberry Pi Foundation took the wraps off of their newest creation, the Raspberry Pi Model A+. Just as the original Model A was a stripped-down version of the Model B, the new A+ inherits the many improvements from the Model B+, but in a smaller size and with fewer features. Available for purchase starting today and pegged at a mere $20, the Model A+ is now cheapest Raspberry Pi that you can buy.
The A+ has a lot of the same specs as its predecessor, the model A. It’s the same Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC) with 256 megabytes of RAM. But unlike the model A, it has a much nicer look and feel. No longer are there unpopulated parts of the PCB, which means that its overall footprint is smaller and it’s much lighter. Like the improvements brought with the Model B+, it has the expanded 40 pin breakout, takes MicroSD cards, and has rounded corners with mounting holes in each corner. In fact, you may notice that the mounting holes are aligned with the Model B+ mounting holes. Not only will this make swapping the B+ for an A+ rather easy, but also HAT expansion boards will be compatible with the A+ in addition to the B+.
“When we announced Raspberry Pi back in 2011, the idea of producing an ‘ARM GNU/Linux box for $25’ seemed ambitious, so it’s pretty mind-bending to be able to knock another $5 off the cost while continuing to build it here in the UK, at the same Sony factory in South Wales we use to manufacture the Model B+,” said Eben Upton in the announcement post blog post.
Thanks to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, I’ve had a Model A+ to experiment with over the past couple weeks. My first impression was how remarkably small and light it is. With no Ethernet port and only a single USB port, it has a very slim profile. That, combined with its smaller PCB footprint means its overall dimensions and weight are greatly reduced. The difference in size is striking. Since many Raspberry Pi projects entail putting the board in some tight spots, the A+ will be useful in cases when the B+ is just too big. I should note that although the Model A+ can fit into an Altoids tin, the board doesn’t quite lie flat inside.
The second significant feature is its price tag. At $20, it’s amazingly affordable and priced very competitively against microcontroller boards and single board computers that are available to makers now. It’s no surprise since Raspberry Pi has always been a leader in affordability. After all, the mission of the non-profit foundation is to get these boards in the hands of young people so that they can learn how computers work and how to program them. By setting the price so low, it removes a big barrier to experimentation with computers.
Booting up the board, it’s everything you’d expect from a Raspberry Pi. Just keep in mind that with 256 megabytes of RAM, the model A+ has half the volatile memory of the B+. (This was also true with the previous generations of both boards.) This means that memory-intensive applications will take a performance hit when compared to a B+. Using the basic tools from the command line and desktop environment, I didn’t notice a ding in performance. Keep in mind that the amount of RAM that’s allocated between the CPU and GPU is adjustable with the raspi-config configuration tool. You may need to make adjustments to optimize the Pi for your application.
Without the extra components, the Raspberry Pi Model A+ draws about 30% less electrical current than the B+. After booting to the Raspbian login with a USB keyboard and mouse plugged in, the A+ drew about 220 milliamps whereas a B+ with the same setup draws about 310 milliamps. With this power savings, the A+ would make a good choice for battery-powered projects.
It’s no secret that the original Model A hasn’t been a big seller for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. In an interview with John Biggs at Techcrunch Disrupt, Eben Upton said that there was only about 100,000 Model A units sold versus the nearly 4 million sold of the Model B and B+ combined. Perhaps with the lower price, smaller size, and a bunch of “plus” enhancements, the new Model A+ will start to earn its keep in the world.
One of the features of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module Development Kit is that the IO board has two camera serial interface connectors. This means that you can connect two of the official (and popular) Raspberry Pi Camera Modules to the board. Argon Design intern David Barker used this enhancement to create a camera capable of depth perception, which requires two separate images and a stereo depth algorithm. Here’s how he explains it:
The algorithm we used is a variant of one which is widely used in video compression. The basic idea is to divide each frame into small blocks and to find the best match with blocks from other frames – this tells us how far the block has moved between the two images. The video version is designed to detect motion, so it tries to match against the previous few frames. Meanwhile, the depth perception version tries to match the left and right camera images against each other, allowing it to measure the parallax between the two images.
David started with some Python code to try out, but translated it into C to speed up the image processing by a factor of over 1,000. He then translated it once again to Assembly for the Raspberry Pi’s GPU… no doubt an impressive feat! Now the process of getting the images from the cameras, processing them to get the depth data, and displaying the results on screen takes around 90 milliseconds, which translates to a respectable 12 frames per second.
If you’ve been eyeballing the progress of the Google Glasses, wondering when and how you can build your own, never fear – DIY makers are here! Maker Nur, who loves coffee and his cats (have cat ladies lost their flair?), devised a way to create his own smart eye-wear, using Raspberry-Pi and a homemade iOS Air App.
Nur calls the creation Air Glasses. The homemade smart eye-wear relies upon an application he calls the Air App. An Air App is a web-based, micro, push application, which takes the image on an iPhone and projects it onto the glasses, courtesy of Raspberry-Pi and a hotspot connection.
Air Glasses User Interface (image courtesy of Nur’s Idea Studio)
While the only hard supplies needed were sunglass frames, a Raspberry-Pi mini computer, video glasses LCD components and a mobile hotspot connection, mad hacking skills are a must for anyone planning to tackle this project. Only the best software engineers and app developers will make it out without a scratch!
Regardless, if you’re up for the challenge, you can save yourself a nice chunk of change by designing smart glasses yourself. Nur’s prototype doesn’t exactly include GPS and X-ray vision, but displaying the time is a good start. Nur may go on to develop more complicated Air Apps for the eye-wear, but only after he spends quality time with the kitties.
Home automation made easy with the help of Raspberry Pi and Arduino
Everybody knows that good things happen when you pair a Raspberry Pi with an Arduino, which includes everything from a Star Trek-like tricorder to a kegerator interface. One Instructables user (Electronichamsters) decided to take the boards and design an extensive home automation platform that’s able to monitor just about everything inside and outside of user’s homes.
Instead of using the boards for simple things such as automated blinds or lights, Electronichamsters ‘Uber Home Automation’ platform can monitor for water leaks, loud noises and even alert users when the mail arrives. His design makes use of a series of cheap wireless sensor nodes (PIR, heat, light, sound, etc.) that can be placed anywhere and on anything that needs monitoring. Those nodes relay the data to a wireless gateway and an Ethernet gateway (an Arduino Uno), which in turn sends the data to the Raspberry Pi.
Electronics basic design schematic gives users a rough idea of how the platform works
The RPi then uploads the data to the internet where users can monitor using their smartphones. It even sends alert emails when something is amiss, allowing users to view the issues through a web cam. The whole setup costs a little over $270, assuming users already own a Raspberry Pi. Those that want to see the build process can head over to Instructables, which has a detailed list of parts and code to get things up and running. Want to know more… head over to project’s Indtructables page.
Ahh… the adhoc project enclosure… It may look crude but this sound sensor is very effective and can be placed anywhere
When you don’t like what it is offered, make it yourself. At least that’s what German based maker Ingmar Staple did. When shopping for his niece and nephew, Ingmar was unimpressed with the selection of toys at toy stores. So, he decided to make one of his own. A Raspberry Pi WiFi radio controlled RC car, with a cardboard chassis.
After finishing the project, friends of Ingmar insisted he put together a How-To guide and share it. It’s divided nicely into 12 chapters, and includes lots of great information for building your own RC car. The project uses a short list of tools to build the cardboard part of the car which include glue, a hot glue gun, a carpet knife, scissors, a ruler, a pan, and a circle, and is simple to make.
Don’t be fooled, this isn’t an actual Game Boy but a Raspberry Pi-based Pocket Pi.
The Game Boy Pocket hit the market back in 1996 and is still popular with fans of the handheld gaming system that they can still be bought today. Yeah, there’s nothing like gaming on a black and white screen, which was better than the pea-green screen of the original Game Boy. Those who are fans of the Pocket but would like to have a color screen and be able to play games from other systems should take a look at Travis Brown’s Pocket Pi.
All of these parts, including the RPi and modified button pad fit nicely inside the Game Boy case.
Travis designed the Pocket Pi by removing the guts from an old Game Boy Pocket and replaced them with a Raspberry Pi SBC running Retro Pi to emulate Game Boy games. To get it to fit correctly, Travis had to modify the case a little bit in order to pack the Pi, 2.5-inch LCD screen, modified Game Boy game pad and battery pack, however it still looks good with all the electronics packed into the small area. The best part is that the Pocket Pi can play games from other platforms as well, including NES, Sega Master System and even Game Gear using the Retro Pi emulator.
PiGRRL Raspberry Pi Game Boy replica with 3D printed case looks suspiciously like the real thing.
Of course, this isn’t the first time someone has made a Raspberry Pi-based Game Boy replica as Make reported on a 3D printed Replica from Adafruit back in July of this year (make it so). In that case, the Game Boy clone made use of a Raspberry Pi, SNES controller and PiTFT mini kit to play emulated games. The kicker was that it could be had in several different colors using a customized 3D printed case. It just goes to show what Nintendo fans are capable of when they want to get their retro gaming on! A video showing the game selection and play can be viewed below. See more about this build through this link.
Mo Volans from FiveNinjas shares Slice at World Maker Faire New York 2014. It’s a set-top media player that’s based on the brand new Raspberry Pi Compute Module. They’re in the process of crowdfunding the project, and have met their funding goal. Since it’s based on the Raspberry Pi hardware and XBMC software, the platform is totally hackable.
At MakerCon, I had the pleasure of sitting down with James Adams, the Director of Hardware Engineering for Raspberry Pi. We talked about his role in the design of the Linux single-board computer and the newest hardware. Their new Model B+, the HAT specification, and the Compute Module.
James is also on the team behind Slice, the Compute Module-based media player. In our interview, we covered how the process of developing Slice lead to software and hardware improvements in the Compute Module. Come to World Maker Faire New York this weekend to see a prototype of Slice and check out all the Raspberry Pi projects and programming.
The Pi Top is an educational kit. It appears as though it is in the early stages of planning an upcoming crowdfunding campaign. the basic idea is that you assemble the entire laptop yourself and learn a few things along the way. There are a series of lessons packaged in software that come along with the raspberry pi powered laptop as well. To find out more about the entire Pi Top project, you can check out their website and sign up for updates as they get closer to opening their campaign.
What caught my eye on this project was the log they shared of trying to prototype their fully 3D printed laptop case.
Keyboard fit nicely, the printer managed to keep things pretty tidy on the corners even at 13 inches high.
You can see the slight extrusion lines, no sanding was done on this prototype.
The hinge is quite stable, a metal bar holds the hinge together - the back of the print is at an angle there so that we could put the bar inserts in easily. We used strong clear tape so we could dissemble the prototype if needed. Our final prototype is close to being printed and will be 1/3 thinner than this first 3D printed prototype.
The case is roughly 13 inches x 9 inches. This piece took 38 hours to print .2mm layers 30% infill printed in PLA. Printer used: Rostock Max V2 kit, with E3D all metal hotend upgrade.
We worked with a .5mm tolerance. The pieces fit nicely together. This prototype has taught over 400 people about hardware. It's starting to show some signs of wear.
Make: Contributing Editor Alasdair Allan visited Maker Faire Trondheim last weekend and caught up with Frode Halvorsen, the general manager of Trondheim Makers. As one of the organizers of the faire, he showed off their advertising campaign, a Raspberry Pi and MaKey MaKey-equipped bus stop ad that lets pedestrians play Pac-Man. The video above gives you a glimpse into the production of the interactive advert, which is part of a series of two; the other one being a photo booth.
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