Raspberry Pi Sentry Turret Is The Enemy Of All Mankind

October 3, 2015 by Richard Baguley 20 Comments

War, huh, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing, except as an excuse to build a Raspberry Pi powered sentry turret that will track and fire upon your enemies. That’s what [Matt Desmaris] decided to do, and he has released the full details of his build.

It lacks the polished elegance of most military hardware, but what do you expect of a quick and dirty hack? It’s not shiny or ominous, but it has that killer motion-tracking feature. [Matt] is using OpenCV to detect movement from a USB webcam, two servos to pan and tilt the camera and gun and a small relay to pull the trigger. Manual control over the Interwebs is also available.

We’ve seen lots of similar builds using weaponry such as rubber bands and Nerf guns, but this one is a great start if you are interested in seeing how you can tie together tools like OpenCV and servos to create a camera that actively tracks movement.

Raspberry Pi 2 Game Boy Brings Sexy Back From 1989

October 1, 2015 by Cameron Coward 18 Comments

When the ever-versatile Raspberry Pi was released, the potential for cheap video game emulation was immediately obvious. Some of the very first Raspi projects to hit the internet were arcade cabinets, and it wasn’t long until people were making them portable. A purpose-build Linux distort called RetroPie has become very popular specifically because of the Raspi’s game-emulation potential. However, the actual hardware for these emulation systems isn’t always the most aesthetically (or ergonomically) pleasing. That’s where reddit user [Cristov9000] has managed to stand out from the crowd.

[Cristov9000] accomplished this by combining high-quality design (and 3D printing) with the careful use of original Nintendo parts. Game Boy and SNES buttons and elastomers were used to achieve the correct button feel. Other original Game Boy parts, like the volume wheel and power switch, ensure that the system feels as much like 1989 OEM hardware as possible.

Also impressive is the internal hardware, including 3 custom PCBs used to tie everything together to work via the Raspberry Pi 2 GPIO pins. The display is a 3.5″ TFT screen, and with the 6000 mAh it can handle gameplay for more than 7 hours. Other details, like the integrated mono speaker and rear shoulder buttons complete the experience. Combined with the RetroPie and an assortment of emulators, this is one of the most impressive portable gaming builds we’ve seen, especially among a crowded list of awesome raspi-based Game Boy builds.

Raspberry Pi Opens Doors

September 28, 2015 by Will Sweatman 29 Comments

The Raspberry Pi is a cheap credit card sized computer that has opened the doors of embedded Linux to millions of people. But in this case, it’s literally opening a door. The Computer Club at Western Michigan University had to move to a different room which brought with it a new challenge. The door handle was more difficult to turn than the old one. Nothing that a NEMA 17 stepper couldn’t handle, however.

After printing a few gears and wiring up an Easy Driver board between the Raspi and stepper motor, they had the basics of a door opener in place. A 5v relay is used to keep the power off the stepper when not in use, and a limit switch is used to monitor the position of the door handle while a Hall Effect sensor tells when the door is open and shut.

Be sure to check out the project as all source, parts list and schematics are available in case you have a simliar door that needs amending.

World Maker Faire 2015: Automatic Photo Collage

September 26, 2015 by Adam Fabio 4 Comments

We’re on the ground here at the 6th Annual World Maker Faire in Queens, New York. This year the Faire is even bigger, extending out from the New York Hall of Science towards Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Just inside the gates, we ran into [Tommy Mintz] who was showing off his improved portable automated digital photo collage (IP-ADC). Tommy has connected a Raspberry Pi and its camera on a long extension cable. The camera resides high up on a monopod, giving it a bird’s eye view of the area. The Pi first captures a background image, then grabs shots of things that change within the scene. The resulting collages range from hilarious to the surreal. The entire system is mounted on a cart and powered by batteries.

[Tommy] hooked us up with the WiFi password, so we were able to download photos directly from the IP-ADC. Less technologically inclined folks would be able to grab physical prints from the on-board Epson photo printer.

We’ll be reporting what we see here at the faire, so drop us a tweet @hackaday if you want us to stop by!

Raspberry Pi Weather Station In Progress

September 24, 2015 by Richard Baguley 13 Comments

[Jeremy Morgan] is building a weather station from scratch using a Raspberry Pi, and he has put together a nice write up that shows where he is at, and how it works. Currently, his setup is in the breadboard stage and is measuring humidity, temperature, pressure and light level using sensors that connect over one wire and I2C. He also shows how he is using Google Docs to store the data, by getting the Pi to write to a Google Spreadsheet over email: the Pi emails the data to Google every 30 seconds.

There is an analysis portion, with a Microsoft Azure web site that graphs the data over time. It’s a bit of a dogs breakfast (he might have used one interface technology for all of the sensors, for instance), but it is still a nice overview of the overall process.

Automatically channeling data into an easily accessible medium has been the target of many hacks going way back. We’ve seen a ton of companies pop up to help satisfy the need but between those and the hacked together (usually) open source solutions, there doesn’t seem to be a clear winner. What’s your favorite method of gathering and displaying data from projects like this onto the web? Let us know in the comments.

Echo, Meet Mycroft

September 23, 2015 by Al Williams 50 Comments

The Amazon Echo is an attempt to usher in a new product category. A box that listens to you and obeys your wishes. Sort of like Siri or Google Now for your house. Kickstarter creator [Joshua Montgomery] likes the idea, but he wants to do it all Open Source with a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino.

The Kickstarter (which reached its funding goal earlier this month) claims the device will use natural language to access media, control IoT devices, and will be open both for hardware and software hacking. The Kickstarter page says that Mycroft has partnerships with Lucid and Canonical (the people behind Ubuntu). In addition, they have added stretch goals to add computer vision and Linux desktop control to Mycroft.

Continue reading “Echo, Meet Mycroft” →

Old LISP Language Used For New Raspberry Pi OS

September 23, 2015 by Rud Merriam 30 Comments

On the scale of awesomeness, writing an operating system ranks near the top for software hackers and ranks just below writing a whole new language. [Lukas F. Hartmann] is reaching for the epic status with the Raspberry Pi operating system dubbed Interim. In an interesting mixture of old and new, it’s written in LISP!

LISP (LISt Processing) is the second oldest high-level programming language that received wide-spread usage. The only one older is FORTRAN (FORMula TRANslation), and that is just by one year. LISP is generally associated with artificial intelligence research but it also surfaced as a utilitarian scripting language in various applications like AutoCad. You may have also heard of a more recent dialect, Clojure, which has been receiving a lot of attention.

The source code, an image for the Pi 2, and directions for making it all work are available. [Lukas] also describes how to get a new OS up and running on a Pi.

[Lukas] isn’t the first to create this type of system. Back in the ’70s MIT worked on a Lisp machine that led to commercially available systems. If you have an old Apple IIe around you can make it into a Lisp Machine. You can also find LISP in the Internet of Things. And then there is [kremlint] who actually scored an original LISP Machine. We’ll have to keep an eye on his progress in restoring it to working condition.

Thanks for the tip, [krs013].