Issue #27 — Postal

This week Ryan has been getting his new motor controller boards ready to be shipped out, while Ben has been planning and plotting at Pi Towers as well as working on the new Manchester CoderDojo website. Ben also attended Manchester’s chapter of the Global Day of Code Retreat at the BBC in Media City, where he practised the craft of code, and took Amy Mather along too.

Just for fun – check out this collection of cool things (we love collections of cool things) Liz tweeted recently – The Most Amazing Science Images of 2013.

Ryan wishes you all a merry Christmas! Ben refuses to accept how close Christmas is, but realises this is the last issue before the 25th, so he’d better say something – Bah, humbug!

Have a great Christmas! We’ll be back (in brief) next week.

Ben and Ryan

Picture of the week

The first wave of replacements at the Portuguese sorting office – a bank of 24 antiquated machines refitted with Raspberry Pis and TFT flat panels

News

• Raspberry Pi Wins Social Impact Business Award (cambridge-news.co.uk)
  The Raspberry Pi Foundation has been named as Social Impact Business of the Year
• Kerala Government Distribute 10,000 Pis (thehindubusinessline.com)
  The Indian government is planning to distribute 10,000 Raspberry Pis to schools

Projects

• Raspberry Pi Enabled Christmas Lights (element14.com)
  Flashing lights, Christmas-themed bulb and some internet connectivity thrown in
• Raspberry Pi Google Calendar (instructables.com)
  Google Calendar, an old monitor and a Raspberry Pi to make a wall mounted calendar
• Karaoke Pi Fun (pi-fun.com)
  Build your own karaoke machine
• Sleepi (tycen.com)
  Build a "go back to sleep" indicator for your kids waking up too early on Christmas day
• Jack the (DVD) Ripper (britishideas.com)
  Automate the process of ripping your DVD collection with a Pi-powered automaton

Articles & more

• Going Postal in Portugal (raspberrypi.org)
  The Portuguese Postal Service swapped out the brains of their sorting machines
• 3 Essential Add-ons Reviewed (itpro.co.uk)
  IT Pro look at PiFace Control & Display, Fuze and GertDuino modules
• Joy of Learning (notjustaphysicsteacher.blogspot.co.uk)
  Patrick Donovan's journey that spawned from an early Christmas present - a Pi
• Best Raspberry Pi Add-ons (techradar.com)
  Ben Everard reviews PiLite, the camera module, Quick2Wire and GPIO expanders
• The Secret Raspberry Pi Recipe (thinkbiggrowfast.net)
  Eben reveals how the cult British product became an international success
• A report on Code Club in 2013 (blog.codeclub.org.uk)
  Claire Sutcliffe, founder of CodeClub, reflects on what they've achieved this year
• Hacking Fruit with Raspberry Pi (vam.ac.uk)
  Rachel's workshop combining art making practices with Raspberry Pi

Contact & Submissions

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