Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #109

Building a microcontroller board took Raspberry Pi into a whole new direction. When Raspberry Pi Pico first came out, we were amazed by all the potential, but a little lost by the newness of it all. We worked with Raspberry Pi to publish a series of starter projects, and our team of talent rose to the occasion: building everything from smart guitars to games controllers. It’s been over half a year since then and we’re ready to start talking about serious Pico projects. In fact, we’re even discussing our favourite makes so far. See 20 Raspberry Pi Pico projects (page 30). It’s incredible what you can make with Raspberry Pi, and it’s also incredible just how good Raspberry Pi is as a general-purpose computer. Our Raspberry Pi Student Guide (page…

OKdo and Sony Pi have worked together on a new scheme to renew Raspberry Pi computers. Raspberry Pi owners can send pre-loved Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi 4 boards to OKdo Renew in exchange for £10 vouchers. Raspberry Pi boards will be sent directly to the Sony Technology Centre where they were originally manufactured. These pre-loved boards will be tested, reconditioned, and renewed. OKdo plans to put the restored boards back on sale at a lower price, and will donate to the Raspberry Pi Foundation for each board sold. OKdo’s SVP of Technology Richard Curtin comments: “With the global population predicted to approach nine billion people by 2030, we are using more resources than the planet can provide; our future depends on reusing what we have in a sustainable…

Who doesn’t love a model railway? Mechatronics student Kushagra Keshari is a big fan, and often combines his love of locomotion with his interest in electronics. Having spotted a YouTube video introducing Raspberry Pi Pico, he decided it was high time he investigated the microcontroller and explored how it might be incorporated into his model railway setup. The result, Pico-Controlled Automated Model Railroad (magpi.cc/picorailroad), builds on his ‘sensored’ track concept that detects a train passing and instructs it to speed up, slow down, or come to a halt. “Electric motors are among my most favourite devices because they connect the fields of electronics and mechanics,” he reveals. “I try to add motors wherever possible.” As someone with experience of Arduino, Kushagra believes Pico has great crossover appeal, lauding its ease…

01 Program your Pico using the Arduino IDE code provided in Kushagra’s GitHub repo (magpi.cc/picorailroadgit), then create your track layout, ensuring the ‘sensored’ section of track is located as indicated with the higher arrow. The locomotive is positioned on the lower arrow. 02 Connect the wires of the track power block to the outputs of the motor driver, then connect the female DC jack positive wire to the +12 V terminal. Connect a male jumper and the DC jack’s negative wire to the GND (centre) terminal, and a jumper wire to the +5 V (right) terminal of the motor driver. 03 Attach Pico to the motor driver via the 5 V pin. Connect GP7 to ENA, GP8 to IN1, and GP9 to IN2. Connect the sensored track to the Pico…

Old-looking tech with futuristic properties is a popular concept in media these days, so much so that we’re surprised this is one of the first projects like this we’ve seen. “My project was taking an old 1988 word processor and repurposing it into a gaming emulator with a Raspberry Pi,” creator Dylan Blake tells us. “I wanted to utilise the floppy disk drive with RFID tags to initiate the software and have a working power button for added effect.” We’ve covered an RFID-based record player that did something similar with vinyls, but it wasn’t built into an old piece of tech like this. “I came up with the idea by realising I didn’t have a cool case to put my emulator in, and I really dig all things retro,” Dylan…

Tephritid fruit flies can be a huge pest when it comes to agriculture, destroying various crops wherever they go. To try and stay ahead of any swarms, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) is using Raspberry Pi-powered monitoring stations. The system was designed and programmed by Shinobu Sukenari, a MAFF senior inspector, using the following requirements: they should take a photo of the trap at least once a day and report them over the internet. Secondly, the systems should run for a month without external power. Finally, the system should be protected from the sun, wind, and rain. Fly trapped “We use a [trap] to capture and kill the target,” Soichi Nagasato, CEO of Mechatrax who helped develop the monitoring station, tells us. “Then we photograph the…