The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book, Volume 2

The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book Volume 2The Raspberry Pi Foundation has published the second in its Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book series, and as usually there’s a whole raft of my material to be found within its black-clad pages.

The book begins with practical guides and tutorials, including my guide to adding a physical reset switch to the RUN header on any modern Raspberry Pi Zero. It’s the review section where you’ll find the bulk of my work, however, beginning with a look at a couple of handy tools for makers: the Proster VC99 multimeter and the Tenma 60W Digital Soldering Station.

Further on you’ll find detailed reviews of two microcontroller-based products which can interface with the Raspberry Pi or operate entirely standalone: the Adafruit Gemma Starter Kit and the Bare Conductive Touch Board Starter Kit. The former acts as an introduction to the world of conductive thread, while the latter uses conductive ink to complete the circuits in its bundled guide.

Finally, my contributions to the Projects Book Volume 2 end with a review of the Pimoroni pHAT DAC, a compact add-on for the Raspberry Pi Zero – though mechanically compatible with any other modern Pi model bar the bare Compute Module family – which adds a high-quality digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) and 3.5mm jack. Those looking to wire a Pi into the stereo systems can also solder on optional stereo RCA jacks, which I thought was a particularly nice feature.

As with the previous book in the series, the Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book Volume 2 is available to download free under the Creative Commons licence from the official website.

The MagPi, Issue 38

The MagPi Issue 38In this month’s official Raspberry Pi magazine, The MagPi, you’ll find my review of the Adafruit Gemma Starter Kit, as kindly supplied by CPC – a great follow-on to Issue 37’s review of the more basic Kitronik Electro-Fashion Deluxe E-Textiles Starter Pack.

Like the Kitronik bundle, the Adafruit Gemma Starter Kit is focused on teaching the user about the uses of conductive thread for wearable and soft-circuit projects. Like the Kitronik bundle, it’s heavily focused on making things light up. Unlike Kitronik’s creation, though, it offers more than just simple on-off circuit potential: the kit is based around a Gemma, a small Arduino-compatible microcontroller designed by Adafruit in partnership with Arduino.cc.

While basic compared to a full Arduino Uno or similar, having just three GPIO pins and no user-accessible serial port, the Gemma is nevertheless surprisingly flexible. It’s also accessible: there’s a USB port right on the board, while support is included in the Arduino IDE as standard. Although the 3.3V logic can be annoying for those coming from 5V Arduino projects, it’s nothing a level-shifter can’t fix – and for The MagPi’s audience of Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, 3.3V logic will be entirely familiar and compatible with their existing parts bucket.

The rest of the kit is well thought out, too. There’s a number of NeoPixel RGB LEDs, offering a wide range of lighting effects, and a generous amount of fine conductive thread pre-wound onto a machine-compatible bobbin. Better still, there’s a pack of needles – something the Kitronik bundle missed, making a trip to the shops necessary for anyone who hasn’t already got a sewing kit with a wide-gauge needle to hand. There’s even a set of leads with crocodile clips, making testing your circuit prior to sewing the components down a breeze.

It’s fair to say that I’m a fan of the Gemma kit, but to get my full opinion you’ll need to pick up a copy of The MagPi Issue 38. It’s available in print from Tesco and WH Smith, or as a free PDF download from the official website if you’d comfortable where you are.