Issue #31 — Astronaut

Hi there

On Monday, Ben attended the Pi Makers weekly session at MakeSpace, and today Ryan is spending the day at Pi Towers on his work experience (by special invitation). Next week Ben will be attending BETT 2014 in London with Clive, Carrie Anne and Dave representing the Raspberry Pi education team with OCR.

Dave from the Foundation went to a book signing to meet astronaut Chris Hadfield this week, and gave him the gift of a Raspberry Pi. We hope he finds a use for it. Dave also joined twitter – he’s @dave_spice!

All the videos of talks from Manchester Raspberry Jam XVI in November are now online thanks to Les Pounder. Go check them out.

We found an interesting article on linux.com about breaking away from proprietary software – well worth a read: Going Against the Grain. On the same subject, we also found some short videos from a discussion on Open Source Software vs. Proprietary Software – with open source well defended by Preston based web development company director Jeremy Coates.

It was just announced by Young Rewired State that the YRS Festival of Code 2014 (28 July – 3 August) is now open for registration for attendees and centres.

Ben & Ryan

Picture of the week

Artist in Residence Rachel Rayns ran a Pi workshop at the Royal College of Art this week

News

• Technology of the Year Award (infoworld.com)
  Raspberry Pi wins InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award
• Picamera Python Module v1.0 Released & Packaged (raspberrypi.org)
  Dave Jones's Python library for using the camera hits v1.0 and lands in Raspbian
• New Scratch Alpha (raspberrypi.org)
  Developer release of a new optimised version of Scratch on Pi
• Poster Competition Entries & Updates (raspberrypi.org)
  Videos of poster entries, updates and news that over 5000 Pis will now be awarded
• PC Monitor Adds Raspberry Pi Support (techcrunch.com)
  PC Monitor adds support for Pi and other devices

Projects

• Touchscreen Point-and-Shoot Camera (learn.adafruit.com)
  Use the Adafruit TFT and python-picamera to build your own featureful camera
• Raspberry Pi Adventure - VNC (gauntface.co.uk)
  A beautifully presented Pi adventure in using VNC - by Matt Gaunt at Google London
• Bakery (github.com)
  Use a Pi with an SD card reader and PiFace to write an OS image to another card
• Arduberry: Arduino to RPi Converter (kickstarter.com)
  Arduberry allows you to use Arduino Shields, sensors & Code with your Raspberry Pi
• Raspberry Pi Video Camera And Timelapse Recorder (geeky-gadgets.com)
  Jason Birch built a camera with a Pi and a 3.5" display powered by six AA batteries

Articles & more

• Pi UPS (youtube.com)
  Uninterrupted Power Supply for Raspberry Pi
• 11 Reasons Why it's the Perfect Small Server (zdnet.com)
  What makes the Pi an attractive solution for a lightweight server
• Top Tech Trends of 2013 (newelectronics.co.uk)
  Mike Powell of element14 on the biggest impact on the electronics industry in 2013
• Raspberry Pi LED Spectrum Analyzer (learn.adafruit.com)
  This shows the loudness of frequency bands in real-time to visualise music
• Experiments with Camera and Wifi (zdnet.com)
  Adding a high-res camera and a USB wi-fi dongle for more fun with the Pi

Upcoming Events

• Raspberry Jam Silicon Valley (18 January)
• Manchester Raspberry Jam XVII (25 January)
• Exeter Raspberry Jam (25 January)
• Newcastle-Under-Lyme Raspberry Jam (30 January)
• Various Pi Workshops (Bristol University) (1 February)
• Cambridge Raspberry Jam 5 (8 February)
• Sonic Pi Workshop (8 February)

Thanks to our sponsor

Linux Voice is a new and different kind of Linux and Free Software magazine from an all-star team of Linux journalists. It binds the most informative and entertaining 114 pages you’ve ever read on your favourite subjects with two groundbreaking commitments: it will give 50% of its profits back to clubs, developers and projects chosen by its readers. And every word, image and video produced by the magazine will be released under a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-SA) within 9 months. No other magazine comes close. Digital subs start at just £38 with print subs available globally. First issue is due February.

Contact & Submissions

This newsletter is curated by @ben_nuttall. Tweet links to @rpf_weekly or email weekly [at] raspberrypi.org