Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #123

Most makers have an inner Wallace and Gromit: inner fools armed with a spanner and some string that are ready to wire up an alarm clock that cooks breakfast. This month, we're looking at wiring up your house with Raspberry Pi Pico W to build your own smart home (page 40). The small footprint and low power demand of Pico W, combined with its wireless LAN capabilities, make it ideal for dotting around the house to turn on and off gadgets. Consequently, a wide range of home automation kits and project ideas have sprung up, and we thought it high time to see what is possible. So, if you fancy smart-lighting, face-tracking cameras, burglar alarms, and automated doors, this issue is for you. GET A RASPBERRY PI PICO W WITH…

MAKER Spencer Hochberg Spencer spent his teenage years inventing unicycle tricks with photography and videography as a side effect. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering from UCLA, and now works with small teams on live shows. polefx.com Billing itself as the world's most advanced dance pole, PoleFX uses thousands of LED lights embedded inside a network-connected pole. On the sidelines, a Raspberry Pi-powered network box is using OpenCV to image match videos and turn them into light-based visual animations. “Our goal is to create functional pieces of art and embed show technology into new places,” explains Spencer Hochberg, inventor and owner of PoleFX. Amongst the dazzle and display, it is easy to overlook the technical requirements of this build. The pole itself needs to be “structurally strong” explains Spencer,…

MAKER Philipp Hoeler-Lutz Philipp is a NixOS nerd who likes to build mechanical keyboards and small devices with a taste of cyber. nerdbude.com As self-confessed retro nuts, we did a double take when we saw the Clockwork Pi DevTerm (magpi.cc/devterm). It reminded us of the TRS-80 Model 100 portable computer while also showing how attractive a notepad device can be nearly 40 years on, with a full physical keyboard beneath a widescreen display. What's more, we're not alone in thinking this “When I saw the DevTerm, I thought - wow - I need this!,” says Philipp Hoeler-Lutz. And yet the price put him off, prompting a search for a different way of achieving the same result. “I found an affordable Amstrad NC100 and I thought this was the form factor…

MAKER Kevin McAleer Kevin makes robots, brings them to life with code, and makes videos about them on YouTube. magpi.cc/kevsrobots With the change of seasons, self-confessed “Raspberry Pi nerd” Kevin McAleer figured his beloved pups could do with some eye-catching outerwear to ensure they'd be seen during their evening walk. After a quick consultation with his chihuahua, Archie, about his modelling fees, Kevin set about designing the NeoPixel-encrusted Cyberdog Smart Saddle, an RGB LED coat that Kevin would be able to control from his phone. Brighter, later Kevin McAleer's work may be familiar: he hosts a popular Sunday YouTube robot design channel (magpi.cc/kevsrobots). Among other intriguing makes, we've recently featured both Kevin's Billy Bass remotely flappable fish (magpi.cc/billybass) and his PIKON DIY camera (magpi.cc/pikoncamera). While both those projects upcycle existing…

01 Use pencil and paper to measure up your pup for their Cyberdog saddle, taking their contours into account. Add a tiny pocket to your saddle design: it's ideal for keeping a LiPo battery that can be easily replaced. 02 Connect the battery to connect to a Pimoroni LiPo Amigo Pro. This will charge it and can also connect to another device via a JST-PH connector. Kevin recommends Pimoroni's Phew! Code to add a wireless access point. 03 Check that the setup works and the lights illuminate as expected. ‘Dog-proof the LED strips by applying two or more lots of superglue, so there's less chance of them coming unstuck from the plastic dog coat.…

MAKER Tod Kurt Tod has decades of experience as an embedded engineer, hardware hacker, Arduino guru and, latterly, a MicroPython/ CircuitPython aficionado. todbot.com/blog Embedded systems and hardware hacking hold no fear for Tod Kurt, who has years of experience with both. Tod shares expert tips on Arduino and MicroPython (magpi.cc/circuitpytricks), and recently unveiled this PicoStepSeq MIDI sequencer based on our favourite microcontroller board. Prior to his adventures in Raspberry Pi Pico programming, Tod's company, ThingM, had launched a “simple but popular” USB LED notification light known as blink(1) (blink1.thingm.com). This provides a visual indication that you've received a message, email, retweet, and so on. The idea behind the PicoStepSeq is also visual: using GPIO pins, Tod planned to program Pico to light a series of LEDs at varying intensities when…