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Published:
July 13, 2015

Raspberry Pi Projects For Dummies

Overview

Join the Raspberry revolution with these fun and easy Pi projects

The Raspberry Pi has opened up a whole new world of innovation for everyone from hardware hackers and programmers to students, hobbyists, engineers, and beyond. Featuring a variety of hands-on projects, this easy-to-understand guide walks you through every step of the design process and will have you creating like a Raspberry Pi pro in no time. You’ll learn how to prepare your workspace, assemble the necessary tools, work with test equipment, and find your way around the Raspberry Pi before moving on to a series of fun, lively projects that brings some power to your plain ol’ Pi.

  • Introduces Raspberry Pi basics and gives you a solid understanding of all the essentials you’ll need to take on your first project
  • Includes an array of fun and useful projects that show you how to do everything from creating a magic light wand to enhancing your designs with Lego sensors, installing and writing games for the RISC OS, building a transistor tester, and more
  • Provides an easy, hands-on approach to learning more about electronics, programming, and interaction design for Makers and innovators of all ages

Bring the power of Pi to your next cool creation with Raspberry Pi Projects For Dummies!

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About The Author

Sean McManus is an expert technology and business author. His previous books include Mission Python, Coder Academy, and Cool Scratch Projects in Easy Steps.

Mike Cook is a former professor in physics at Manchester Metropolitan University. His other books include Raspberry Pi Projects and Raspberry Pi Projects For Dummies.

Sample Chapters

raspberry pi projects for dummies

CHEAT SHEET

You can connect your Raspberry Pi to the Arduino and get even more out of both boards, and there are several methods for making this connection. The Raspberry Pi has a variety of GPIO pins that you can use in your projects, but it helps if you know the functions of the various pins. Finally, the Raspberry Pi can power devices in several ways — which can come in handy as you build projects.

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The Internet is a wealth of information on the Raspberry Pi, some more reliable than others. Here are some extremely useful and reliable sites — ones you’ll want to check regularly: Adafruit: The legendary Limor Fried’s company offerings for the Raspberry Pi. Named after Ada Lovelace, a collaborator with Charles Babbage and all-around mathematical genius.
Want your Raspberry Pi to do something cool? The human eye can instantly identify characteristics of an individual that tells us many things about that person, at a glance. Within seconds of looking at someone, you typically know that person’s gender, approximate age, and height, and you may be able to identify who the person is (if you’ve met him before).
A common question is “Will the Raspberry Pi power this?,” to which the answerer is always “What do you mean by power?” Basically, there are three ways a Pi can power something and each has a separate answer. Sourcing the power from the GPIO pin The GPIO pins are quite fragile on the Raspberry Pi, compared with other boards like the Arduino.
The general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins can be switched between input or output and have a pull-up or pull-down resistor enabled, but there are a host of other peripherals in the Raspberry Pi chip that can be switched to these pins. You can see the basic arrangement for one pin, GPIO 18. All the other pins have a similar arrangement but with different blocks to select from.
You can connect your Raspberry Pi to the Arduino and get even more out of both boards, and there are several methods for making this connection. The Raspberry Pi has a variety of GPIO pins that you can use in your projects, but it helps if you know the functions of the various pins. Finally, the Raspberry Pi can power devices in several ways — which can come in handy as you build projects.
Need a new Raspberry Pi project? You can run quite a few third-party languages on the LEGO brick, but ev3dev puts a cut-down version of Linux on the brick. You don’t need to change anything on the brick because ev3dev runs off a micro SD card inserted into the brick. You can easily revert your LEGO brick back to the original state by simply unplugging the SD card.
You may need to cope with contact bounce for your next Raspberry Pi project. Reading a switch is quite simple. It returns either a 0 or a 1, depending on whether the switch is pressed. Switches should always be connected between the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) input pin and ground and either enable the internal pull-up resistor or fix an external resistor to them.
Interested in a new Raspberry Pi project? The Lorenz attractor almost singlehandedly originated a whole branch of science chaos theory. It seems fitting that a man who worked for so much of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, be remembered for a program that runs on an operating system designed in Cambridge, England.
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