Raspberry Pi at BETT 2015

23 January 2015


I've just got back from Bett 2015, and thought I'd write a short blog post to share some of the things I saw there today. My first observation is that it was great to see the Raspberry Pi having such a strong presence there this year, thanks to the support of CPC. Last time I was at BETT was in 2013, when there was only space to have one demo station. This year, there were a couple of tables set up with Raspberry Pis for visitors to use, and a row of seats behind too. There was a large presentation screen at the front, and a packed programme that has seen a new talk delivered every half an hour or so for the last three days, with one more day to go.

I attended several of the sessions. Michael Horne from CamJam opened the day with a talk about the two EduKits that provide a tin of components to enable simple electronics experiments. He says there are already over 1,200 of the kits out there, and you're welcome to use the EduKit project sheets with your own components if you have them. The first kit includes a breadboard and LEDs you can use to build and program a traffic light, and the second kit has a range of sensors (including temperature and movement) and can be used to make a burglar alarm.

Later on in the day, there was a chance to use the kits to build a reaction timer in a session led by Matthew Parry, head of computing at Swanwick School and Sports College. He talked us through building the kit and programming it in Scratch, and it was great to have such a hands-on and practical workshop at the heart of the Pi booth.

The reaction timer project

Dave Honess gave a presentation of the weather station project, which is being sponsored by Oracle, and will see 1,000 Pi-compatible weather station kits given away to schools. The data from the weather stations will be uploaded to an Oracle cloud, and everyone will be able to access the full data sets for data processing (even those who don't have one of the kits). The kit is able to detect air pressure, air quality, humidity, wind speed and rainfall, and students will be able to build a MySQL/PHP website to display their data. If you're curious, the fastest recorded wind speed from somebody blowing on the anemometer is 32mph. Phew!

photo of astronaut Tim PeakeOne of the most exciting talks concerned Astro Pi, which is sending two Raspberry Pis to the International Space Station with British ESA astronaut Tim Peake (pictured here in an underwater laboratory, photo courtesy of NASA). School students have a chance to design (and, in the case of secondary schools, code) the science experiments, powered by the Pi. This is an incredible opportunity for schools that take part, and it will be fantastic to see which projects are selected to go into orbit. The key things to bear in mind are that the astronauts only have four hours to give this project (plus four hours of contingency time), so any projects need to be quick to set up and use. Projects are likely to involve setup, continuous logging and comparison with data on earth logged at the same time. There was also a suggestion that a project that used both Pis to build in redundancy might work well, given the risk that radiation could corrupt memory and prompt one of the Pis to restart.

The last talk of the day I caught was about Wolfram Mathematica. There were two main takeaways from this: firstly, the language is designed to deliver results without too much preamble. The talk showed how data could be processed and graphed without needing the setup and syntactical scaffold common in languages like Python and Java. Secondly, the language incorporates a lot of knowledge already. There wasn't a live connection, so it wasn't possible to demonstrate this, but presenter Jon McLoone from Wolfram said the language can answer questions like "Where is the International Space Station now?" or "What was the weather like in Rome when David Cameron was born?" I look forward to digging into this further. He also demonstrated the drawing of a community graph, which I'm keen to try on my Facebook friends. If you're new to Mathematica, check out the free bonus Mathematica chapter from Raspberry Pi For Dummies.

It was great to meet the Raspberry Pi team and to see so many great projects there. I spent some time with Sonic Pi creator Sam Aaron looking at how to optimise my Sonic Pi tune, and enjoyed meeting others I know from Twitter. Bett is still running tomorrow (Saturday), so there's still time to go along and drop in on the Raspberry Pi team. If you went to Bett, what were your highlights?

Permanent link for this post | Blog Home | Website Home | Email feedback


Discover Mathematica on the Raspberry Pi

22 January 2015


As part of the updated second edition of Raspberry Pi For Dummies, my co-author Mike Cook has written a great introduction to Mathematica, a maths-based application that's capable of creating some great mathematical art, among other things. Usually, Mathematica costs about $2,500, but there's a free version on your Raspberry Pi, so this highly exclusive software is now available for everyone to experiment with.

After we'd added chapters on Minecraft, Sonic Pi and RISC OS and updated the rest of the book (was that plug too shameless?), there wasn't room to include the Mathematica chapter in Raspberry Pi For Dummies. So we made it available for free too, as a downloadable PDF that you can read on screen or print out. It's gone through the same editorial process as the rest of the book.

Read it to discover how to use the Mathematica interface for calculations, how to plot functions, how to plot several functions on one graph, parametric plotting, and how you can make 3D graphics using Mathematica. You'll also discover how to make interactive mathematical art like this:

Screengrab from Mathematica showing a star with two sliders to controls its shape

Interactive 3D Art made using Mathematica on the Raspberry Pi

Download the free bonus chapter on Mathematica from Raspberry Pi For Dummies, 2nd edition (PDF)

If you make something you like, please send me your screenshots. It would be great to see what you're making with Mathematica.

Find out more about Raspberry Pi For Dummies here.

Permanent link for this post | Blog Home | Website Home | Email feedback


Dip into the blog archive

June 2005 | September 2005 | January 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006 | May 2006 | June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 | February 2007 | March 2007 | April 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | August 2007 | September 2007 | October 2007 | November 2007 | December 2007 | January 2008 | February 2008 | March 2008 | April 2008 | May 2008 | June 2008 | July 2008 | August 2008 | September 2008 | October 2008 | November 2008 | December 2008 | January 2009 | February 2009 | March 2009 | April 2009 | May 2009 | June 2009 | July 2009 | August 2009 | September 2009 | October 2009 | November 2009 | December 2009 | January 2010 | February 2010 | March 2010 | April 2010 | May 2010 | June 2010 | August 2010 | September 2010 | October 2010 | November 2010 | December 2010 | March 2011 | April 2011 | May 2011 | June 2011 | July 2011 | August 2011 | September 2011 | October 2011 | November 2011 | December 2011 | January 2012 | February 2012 | March 2012 | June 2012 | July 2012 | August 2012 | September 2012 | October 2012 | December 2012 | January 2013 | February 2013 | March 2013 | April 2013 | June 2013 | July 2013 | August 2013 | September 2013 | October 2013 | November 2013 | December 2013 | January 2014 | February 2014 | March 2014 | April 2014 | May 2014 | June 2014 | July 2014 | August 2014 | September 2014 | October 2014 | November 2014 | December 2014 | January 2015 | February 2015 | March 2015 | April 2015 | May 2015 | June 2015 | September 2015 | October 2015 | December 2015 | January 2016 | February 2016 | March 2016 | May 2016 | July 2016 | August 2016 | September 2016 | October 2016 | November 2016 | December 2016 | January 2017 | July 2017 | August 2017 | October 2017 | November 2017 | January 2018 | February 2018 | August 2018 | October 2018 | November 2018 | December 2018 | January 2019 | March 2019 | June 2019 | August 2019 | September 2019 | October 2019 | January 2020 | February 2020 | March 2020 | April 2020 | May 2020 | June 2020 | September 2020 | October 2020 | December 2020 | January 2021 | February 2021 | May 2021 | June 2021 | October 2021 | November 2021 | December 2021 | January 2022 | February 2022 | March 2022 | May 2022 | July 2022 | August 2022 | September 2022 | December 2022 | March 2023 | April 2023 | May 2023 | June 2023 | October 2023 | November 2023 | January 2024 | February 2024 | Top of this page | RSS

Credits

© Sean McManus. All rights reserved.

Visit www.sean.co.uk for free chapters from Sean's coding books (including Mission Python, Scratch Programming in Easy Steps and Coder Academy) and more!

Discover my latest books

100 Top Tips: Microsoft Excel

100 Top Tips: Microsoft Excel

Power up your Microsoft Excel skills with this powerful pocket-sized book of tips that will save you time and help you learn more from your spreadsheets.

Scratch Programming in Easy Steps

Scratch Programming IES

This book, now fully updated for Scratch 3, will take you from the basics of the Scratch language into the depths of its more advanced features. A great way to start programming.

Mission Python book

Mission Python

Code a space adventure game in this Python programming book published by No Starch Press.

Cool Scratch Projects in Easy Steps book

Cool Scratch Projects in Easy Steps

Discover how to make 3D games, create mazes, build a drum machine, make a game with cartoon animals and more!

Raspberry Pi For Dummies

Raspberry Pi For Dummies

Set up your Raspberry Pi, then learn how to use the Linux command line, Scratch, Python, Sonic Pi, Minecraft and electronics projects with it.

Earworm

Earworm

In this entertaining techno-thriller, Sean McManus takes a slice through the music industry: from the boardroom to the stage; from the studio to the record fair.

Walking astronaut from Mission Python book Top | Search | Help | Privacy | Access Keys | Contact me
Home | Newsletter | Blog | Copywriting Services | Books | Free book chapters | Articles | Music | Photos | Games | Shop | About