Program a robot arm in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine 162

Worried about hackers stealing your zeroes and ones? How about transmitting data over an air-gapped pair of Raspberry Pi computers, so that information can go one way but not the other? The maker of this system is calling it a data diode, and you can ead all about it in this issue.

If you’ve a hankering for building your own underwater rover, we ran a tutorial last year in which we made one out of bits of old pipe and 3D printed linkages. This issue we’re taking that rover and adding a Raspberry Pi camera, to explore the murky depths of North Wales’ tarns. If we find a sword that bestows upon us the rightful crown of Britain, we’ll let you know. And if that still doesn’t satisfy your need to make things, take a look at our roundup of astronomy applications this issue.

Astronomy is all very well, but what about the other sciences? What if you could build a biological reactor to breed micro-organisms, controlled by a Raspberry Pi? Well gosh darn it, you can – find out hiw with our guide to setting up Pioreactor.

As always, we cast the net wide and far to bring you the most brilliant projects to inspire and delight. One of our favourites this issue is Arnov Sharma’s 3D printed, Raspberry Pi Pico-controlled solder fume extractor.

Want to create 3D objects but lack any sort of knack for spatial design? Get a computer to do it for you! More specifically, follow Rob Miles’ tutorial for designing 3D shapes in FreeCAD using the Python programming language. Everything is a variable, even 3D prints!

And on the back of this issue’s robotics cover feature, we’re taking a look at the SunFounder Fusion HAT+, which is a neat add-on for your Raspberry Pi 5 with a load of features for robotics, plus the excellent addition of voice control. So if you’ve ever wanted to tell a robot to “make me a cup of tea” and have it serve you up a tasty beverage, this is the board for you – just remember to say “please”, for the inevitable day when the robots take over.

There’s heaps more in the magazine, from computing history to the new cutting edge of AI – buy it today or subscribe to never miss an issue.