Science Projects

Mark at marks-space.com shows how to automatically log into a Raspberry Pi: Below I will outline how to automatically log into your Raspberry Pi from a Windows PC using Putty. This requires the setup of SSH keys, which is very easy to do. Learn how to do it here! Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro”? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi. We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Oyvind from Build Electronic Circuits sent in his latest project. It’s a 1937 Philips AM Radio Hacked into an iPhone Dock, the project is basically using the nice old housing since all of the internals were discarded. He is using a module that the iPhone plugs into to grab the audio line out from the phone which is fed into the a small amp. A newer speaker was installed since the original one was not working well anymore. He build a custom display module which is controlled by an Arduino and displays the source selected and volume of the system. The result looks much better than a plastic docking box from the store and from what I can tell from the video it also sounds great.

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Via Mario Klingemann: This one has an adapter that allows me to attach my lensbaby lenses. And a standard tripod screw hole at the bottom. Original post here.

Via raspberrypi-spy.co.uk: Having played around with the Pi camera I quickly realised I needed to make some sort of stand for it. The module weighs almost nothing and is tiny so it can be quite hard to keep in one place when you are experimenting. The Raspberry Pi Foundation apparently recommends Blu-tack, based on cost, simplicity and plain, old fashioned versatility. I thought it would be best to create a template that I could print out and use to create a camera holder without using the real module. That way I could get all the dimensions correct without worrying about squashing or dropping the module itself. So here is a diagram showing the main module measurements. Check it out here! Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro”? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi. We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

Gordon writes: Part of my testing of wiringPi v2. was to make sure that some of the existing libraries code would work with GPIO expanders – and the Adafruit RGB LED Plate was an ideal candidate. So I ordered one, took a few moments to solder it together and plugged it in – and 5 minutes later I had my LCD test program working without any real issues. So if you want to drive one of these from C/C++ or anything else that uses wiringPi, then be assured that it’ll just work! Full details of how to make it work here! Featured Adafruit Products Adafruit RGB Negative 16×2 LCD+Keypad Kit for Raspberry Pi – This new Adafruit Pi Plate makes it easy to use an RGB 16×2 Character LCD. We really like the RGB Character LCDs we stock in the shop. (For RGB we have RGB negative and RGB positive.) Unfortunately, these LCDs do require quite a few digital pins, 6 to control the LCD and then another 3 to control the RGB backlight for a total of 9 pins. That’s nearly all the GPIO available on a Pi! (read more)

manekinen @ mdiy.pl builds a simple symmetrical power supply based on LM317 and LM337. Design is Eagle and includes PCB so you can build it your own. This time, simple project that i made from simple need. Simple, cheap and functional regulated power supply 1,25V to 15V, two separately regulated positive lines and two negative. This power supply uses LM317 and LM337 integrated circuit stabilizers – or their stronger versions. Galvanically separated lines can be connected in various configurations. 1.25V to 15V Simple Dual Symmetrical Power Supply - [Link]

Matt writes: The Pi camera module includes a red LED in one corner of the PCB. This lights up when the camera is active. It’s really useful in giving a visual indication that the camera is doing something and most of the time you will be glad it is there. However there are a number of reasons you might wish it wasn’t. In my testing here are some of the reasons it can get in the way : It can cause reflections on objects you are trying to photograph giving them a red glow. For nature photography it scares animals. For security applications it may draw unnecessary attention to the device. It consumes power. Source code and more here! Featured Adafruit Products Raspberry Pi Camera Board – The Raspberry Pi Camera Module is a custom designed add-on for Raspberry Pi. It attaches to Raspberry Pi by way of one of the two small sockets on the board upper surface. This interface uses the dedicated CSI interface, which was designed especially for interfacing to cameras. The CSI bus is capable of extremely high data rates, and it exclusively carries pixel data. (read more) Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro”? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi. We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!

From Les Orchard’s flickr: I need to blog about this. This photo includes: * A Raspberry Pi with a T-Cobbler * Two 74HC595 shift registers * A 20×4 LCD display with negative RGB backlight (currently hard-wired to purple) Put together, this is a Raspberry Pi running a Python script that uses 3 GPIO pins to control 16 outputs. Driving the LCD itself is a dirty, dirty hack that fools some code from Adafruit into thinking it’s talking directly to GPIO pins, when really it’s talking to my shift registers. It’s that last part which made me bounce in my chair – because I don’t quite yet understand how to talk to the LCD display, yet my hack worked the first time. (Albeit very, very slowly.) \o/ In the near future, I want to figure out how to control the red / blue / green backlight pins from the Raspberry Pi, in order to change colors on the display Original post here. Featured Adafruit Products Adafruit Pi T-Cobbler Breakout Kit for Raspberry Pi – Now that you’ve finally got your hands on a Raspberry Pi® , you’re probably itching to make some fun embedded computer projects with it. What you need is an add on prototyping Pi T-Cobbler from Adafruit, which can break out all those tasty power, GPIO, I2C and SPI pins from the 26 pin header onto a solderless breadboard. This mini kit will make “cobbling together” prototypes with the Pi super easy. Designed for Raspberry Pi Model B Revision 1 or Revision 2. (read more)

Cluster computing with 32 RPis: In the process of developing a novel data sharing system, Kiepert became convinced that the best way to test his ideas was to simulate them on a Beowulf cluster. A Beowulf cluster is a group of computers, usually identical, that are networked together in order to share the task of processing complex problems. (The name Beowulf was chosen by NASA engineers almost 20 years ago for a computer they deemed especially powerful.) At Boise State University, a Beowulf cluster exists in the “MetaGeek Lab” (or Onyx Lab), which is run by the Computer Science Department. The Onyx cluster currently consists of 32 processors, or nodes, each of which has a 3.1GHz Intel processor and 8GB of RAM, allowing substantial parallel processing capability. Read more and check out a pdf of the project here! Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro”? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi. We now have Raspberry Pi Model B with 512MB RAM in stock and shipping now!