Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #119

I have been playing with Pico W for a few weeks now. One of the perks of the job is early access to technology. Pico W is astounding. Pico is already a miniature marvel that packs tremendous power into a small space. Fitting both a wireless LAN chip and an antenna required some extremely clever engineering. You can read all about it on page 34. Beyond the very clever design, putting wireless functionality on the Pico microcontroller is a gamechanger. Now Pico can hook up to your network, make requests from online APIs, and send back data readings to a networked computer. This magazine is packed with incredible projects built by Raspberry Pi’s vibrant community. From recreations of KITT from Knight Rider (page 18) to building your own Weather Station…

MAKER Dmytro Panin Dmytro Panin is a programmer based in Ukraine, and he wrote his first line of code aged eight He works for a large provider of nearshore software engineering services. magpi.cc/sungazer Ever since Dmytro Panin created his Solar System Display to simulate the motion of the planets around the sun (see issue no), he’s had a burning desire to create a similar project to track and visualise our nearest star. “One thing I knew I wanted to implement differently is how it was powered,” he says, wanting his latest device to run off a battery. “Additionally, I realised I didn’t get to explore the moon position in my previous project and I really wanted to visualise it too, and be able to see how it circles around the…

MAKER GroundBIRD consists of developers from Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, and Spain who each developed telescope sensor modules based on Raspberry Pi. magpi.cc/groundbird GroundBIRD is a Raspberry Pi-enabled millimetre-wave telescope that observes polarisation patterns of the cosmic microwave background, which in turn reveals information about the very early universe and its large-scale properties. GroundBIRD’s telescope has an amazingly high rotation speed of 120° per second, and is kept cool to near absolute zero temperature. “The telescope is designed to achieve the highest sensitivity for wide sky observation, with a continuous high rotation speed of 120°/s to suppress atmospheric fluctuations,” explains Mike Peel, part of a team of astronomers from Japan, Korea, Spain, and The Netherlands who developed and work on the GroundBIRD project. Achieving precise observations with the telescope involves…

MAKER A retired HR director and former engineer who likes interesting projects and supporting education. What are tech friends for if not helping you make cool, reactive lights for your musical instruments? In the case of Keith Thomson and his friend Chris Croft, it was updating a previous version. “Chris Croft, a friend of over 40 years is not only the world’s most watched project management trainer, but plays saxophone in a band (lost-at-sea.co.uk) for fun,” Keith explains “He had someone design a light for his saxophone to illuminate it based on the note he was playing. It’s a great piece of electronics, but crucially chews through batteries (he has to replace them in the interval), is bulky, meaning that he has to physically wear the electronics, and is expensive…

MAKER Clemens is a self-employed software engineer who studied computer science and also likes to tinker with electronics and robots. x-tech.online There’s a lot to be said, from a helping wildlife perspective, for leaving parts of your garden to grow completely wild. However, many people still yearn for that wellgroomed, trim lawn which, unfortunately, takes both time and effort. Enter OpenMower, a nifty little gadget that will eliminate some of the strain and pain involved in cultivating the perfect lawn. Surprisingly, creator Clemens Elflein’s initial motivation for the project was not lawn care at all. “I noticed that the options for high-quality robotics prototyping solutions are slim,” he tells us. “There are many small robotics kits available which feature an Arduino-based controller, two motors, and maybe some ultrasonic or collision…

MAKER Fred Arias is currently Living abroad and Likes to spend his free time travelling, brewing beer, and learning how to code to build fun and useful projects. magpi.cc/kitt Although David Hasselhoff became a household name playing Michael Knight in the hit 1980s TV show Knight Rider, the main attraction was undoubtedly KITT, his cool car co-star. Quite aside from being a sleek black 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am, the vehicle drove straight to viewers’ hearts because it was a talking supercomputer on wheels with a dry sense of humour. “As a kid during the 1980s, I was a big fan of Knight Rider and I remember watching it thinking KITT was the coolest car ever,” says Fred Arias. “I even remember going to Universal Studios in Hollywood, where I got…