Technology

Technology – Raspberry Pi.

This can be anything from computers, projectors, printers and anything that uses electronics, especially the Raspberry Pi! As you can see from the article we found below at http://www.pcpro.co.uk/computing/1000043/the-9-best-raspberry-pi-projects-and-uses-cool-things-you-can-do-with-a-22

Since the introduction of the Raspberry Pi a couple of years ago, this piece of kit has transformed how we work. It has also generated alot of interest in children who want to try programing, this solution can be used for a number of applications, just check out the article below – awesome read!

The 9 best Raspberry Pi projects and uses:

1. Raspberry Pi projects: Make a Gameboy

No, seriously. This is a legitimate and doable project for the more advanced user. In terms of the actual coding involved it’s not the most challenging – you’re essentially installing an emulator on your Raspberry Pi – the actual hard work comes in the form of soldering the different pieces together.

Travis Brown, over at XodusTech has produced a detailed log of how he brought back to life his Gameboy using a Raspberry Pi.

The best thing about creating a Pi-Pocket (as he calls it) is that it’s not just Gameboy games you can play with the project. The Pi-Pocket is also capable of playing NES, Sega Master System, Game Gear games as well as popular Linux-based titles such as Doom and Duke Nukem.

2. Raspberry Pi projects: Home Arcade Box 

While it’s not powerful enough to run many modern games, some enterprising tech-heads have twigged that the Pi is just about perfect for playing emulators on. Emulators, for those not in the know, are programs that allow you to play titles from older, outdated consoles such as the SNES, the Sega Genesis and even the original Playstation on PC using freely available ROMs.

 

While you can run most of these emulators from the standard Raspbian OS, the guys over at RetroPie have dedicated a huge amount of time to building a custom disk image that will do almost all the work for you, and allow you to select and start your chosen emulator with nothing more than a USB gamepad.

The legal catch is that you need to own a physical copy of the games, or it’s piracy. So that means on no account should you use this as an opportunity to play all those SNES games that your mum wouldn’t buy you back in 1991.

2. Raspberry Pi projects: Media centre for your TV

Setting up a Raspberry Pi as your home media centre might be the perfect project. By hooking it up to your TV via HDMI, you can get all your media in your living room without having to fork out for Apple TV. Specific operating systems such as RasPlex and RaspbMC (based on the Plex and XBMC frameworks respectively) have even been built in order to make it as easy as possible for you to get started.

 

These systems can access remote media stored in other locations – provided you’re connected to WiFi – are controllable through remote apps on your smartphone, and can directly access services like Netflix and Hulu to stream content to you. It combines all the functionality of a bulky, expensive media setup with a tiny form factor and ridiculously affordable price, and we can’t get enough of it. We’ve even written a tutorial on how to turn your Raspberry Pi into a home media centre.

3. Raspberry Pi projects: Wirelessly control your stereo

Advances in audio technology are making it increasingly easy to take your tunes everywhere you go. For aspiring audiophiles on a budget, the Raspberry Pi can help you realise your Hi-Fi dreams with a minimum of fuss, using it as a music server in a similar way to the media centres described above.

 

By using the RuneAudio disk image, you can connect your Raspberry Pi to your home audio setup and use it to control all your music, whether it’s stored locally, on one of your devices, or on a remote storage drive. You can search and organise your library and play tracks through your browser or smartphone, and the Pi will direct it all through your big shiny speakers. For truly superlative audio quality, you can even send the signal through a USB Digital Analog Converter for HD sound. If that tickles your fancy, have a go yourself with our guide on how to use a Raspberry Pi to control your hi-fi.

4. Raspberry Pi projects: Build a download hub 

What with the Internet being an almost limitless repository of digital content, it seems like we spend a frustrating amount of our lives waiting for downloads to finish. A great way to get round this can be to route all your downloads through a Raspberry Pi and into an external storage device.

 

Rather than clogging up your main computer with piles of files that have to fight with your everyday tasks for disk space and processor speed, using a Pi as a dedicated hub for all your torrents, streams and other downloads leaves you free to get on with your life while you’re waiting for the entire box set of The Walking Dead to finish. An added bonus feature of this is that if any malware or viruses happen to hitch a lift with your content, you can safely scrub them clean without risking the infection of your main computer.

6. Raspberry Pi projects: create a dedicated Minecraft machine

Minecraft is one of the biggest success stories of the indie game world, and was bought from the original creators by Microsoft earlier this year. The sandbox construction sim is essentially an infinite digital LEGO set, and is naturally hugely popular with kids. However, its simplistic, blocky graphics also mean it’s ridiculously easy to run, and the latest versions of the default Raspbian OS come with a custom-optimised copy of the game pre-installed.

 

If you’ve got kids that play Minecraft and you’re tired of constantly having them monopolising your tablet or computer, a Raspberry Pi can be an inexpensive, durable machine that they can use for schoolwork, movies, and all the digital digging they can handle. All you need is a cheap monitor, mouse and keyboard, and you can even easily confiscate it if they’re using it too much.

7. Raspberry Pi projects: Build a case

One of the reasons the Raspberry Pi is so cheap is that it’s shipped with nothing but the bare essentials: no keyboard, no cables, and no case. However, all that exposed circuitry can look worryingly fragile, and it’s a scary thought that your new machine could break at any time.

You can buy cases for your Raspberry Pi in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. But a fun, simple starter project can be building one yourself. The beauty of the Pi is that it’s small enough to fit into just about anything.

With some judicious modification, you could make a case out of an old tobacco tin, or a hollowed-out book. There’s numerous guides online for constructing your own Raspberry Pi case.

8. Raspberry Pi projects: Write your own game

Raspberry Pi is the perfect platform for novice programmers. The Raspbian OS even has built-in programs pre-installed to make getting involved with coding as easy as possible.

One of the best projects for dipping your toes in the waters of programming is creating your own game – it’s quick, straightforward, and at the end of it, you’ll have a functional result that you can show off to friends and family. For a complete guide, read our tutorial on how to write your own Raspberry Pi game.

9. Raspberry Pi projects: Create your own cloud server

With an always-on internet connection and an external hard drive, you can create your own free cloud storage server.

If you want to unshackle yourself from the limitations of cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Google Drive, then Raspberry Pi is a good low-cost option. A quick Google search will bring up plenty of tutorials on how this can be achieved. The website, Lifehacker, has one of the easier to follow tutorials on how to set this up.

 

As you can see this small low cost solution gets to the heart of technology and is 1 of the top solutions this decade that has revolutionized the industry. Check out the video below, an update to the Raspberry Pi version 2.

Raspberry Pi’s are being used every place, from digital cameras, through to networked media players and remote computers.