Articles by Russell Barnes

Tomy Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard Out Run

Way back in 1983, a Japanese company called Tomy created one of the most remarkable toys of its generation: Tomy Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard was a driving simulator complete with gears, ignition, a working dashboard, a steering wheel, and even a looping display. Three years later, Sega released arguably (well, we’d argue it) the greatest, coolest […]

Read more →

Discover electronics in The MagPi 64

This month's magazine is for those who want to know how to build, hack, and make with computers. In our Electronics Starter Guide, you’ll learn how to read schematics, prototype circuits, and build basic electronic kits. Welcome to the wonderful world of electronics with Raspberry Pi. Read all about it in issue 64 of The […]

Read more →

AIY Projects: Vision Kit: build your own intelligent camera

Google AIY Projects has announced its Vision Kit, a smart camera kit you can build using a Pi Zero W, Pi Camera, Module, and a powerful AI board called the ‘Vision Bonnet’. Keen Google fans will recognise the similarity between the Vision Kit and Google Clips, a recently announced smart camera. Vision Kit: intelligent camera […]

Read more →

Win! MonsterBorg & ThunderBorgs

We've teamed up with PiBorg to offer our readers the chance to win MonsterBorg and ThunderBorg robot kits. The MonsterBorg can be programmed as a self-driving robot, used for education about self-driving systems, or raced around the garden as an RC off‑roader. It also makes a great platform for hacking about with robots by adding […]

Read more →

Notagrama interview – a Raspberry Pi that can read music

The subject of a developing crowdfunding campaign, Notagrama caught our eye last month as a really interesting way of teaching music on the Raspberry Pi in a way very different to Sonic Pi. We reached out to creator Daniel Marcial to chat about it. This article was written by Rob Zwetsloot and appears in The […]

Read more →

BitBarista: fully autonomous coffee machine built using Raspberry Pi and Bitcoin

A University of Edinburgh project might just be the first fully autonomous business. The Pi-powered BitBarista accepts Bitcoin payments to dispense coffee, pays users to restock supplies, and will call a technician should a fault occur. BitBarista is not some glorified kettle with WiFi, though. Using the Bitcoin from coffee sales, BitBarista “pays people for […]

Read more →

Get the Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book volume 3!

It’s that time of year again: the weather is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and you’ve already gorged on several boxes of early mince pies. That means it’s also time for volume 3 of the Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book, and it’s out today! Projects for everyone The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Books […]

Read more →

Read-only Raspberry Pi script: how to secure a micro SD card so nothing can be written to it

If you’ve ever built a Pi for a kiosk, installation or information display, you’ll find Adafruit’s read-only Pi script invaluable. This script disables all the write-to-SD-card functions, meaning that you can pull the plug without any risk of data loss or corruption. The Adafruit script forces Raspbian to store all its temporary data in memory, […]

Read more →

C-Turtle

It’s a sad truth, but right now the world is littered with an estimated 110 million land-mines. Clearing them all could take as long as 1000 years and cost $30 billion, but leaving them in situ is not an option. The number of people killed or injured by these hidden weapons recently reached a ten-year high […]

Read more →

128×64 OLED Bonnet review: Pi Zero W screen with controls

Looking for a low-power yet bright mini display for your Pi project? Adafruit’s latest OLED screen, the 128×64 OLED Bonnet, could well fit the bill. An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display offers high contrast combined with a low power draw, since it doesn’t require a backlight. While numerous OLED screens are available, including a range […]

Read more →

Raspberry Pi cat flap project: RPi 3 BLE Bluetooth tag-sensing motorised pet door

The RPI 3 BLE Cat Door is a motorised Raspberry Pi cat flap project with some high-tech smarts. It uses a Raspberry Pi 3, Node-RED and Bluetooth tracking tags to let cats in. Living in Santa Rosa, California, Jeremiah Mattison had a major problem with critters getting into his house through his pet door. “There […]

Read more →

Raspberry Pi-controlled LEGO MINDSTORMS

In this tutorial, you will find the tools you need to easily connect to your robots, and a variety of options for programming and controlling them. Interfacing LEGO MINDSTORMS robots with Raspberry Pi is made easy thanks to the Ch Mindstorms Controller (CMC). The C-STEM Center at UC Davis has developed C-STEM Studio with CMC […]

Read more →