Python-Ish in The Magpi magazine

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The latest Magpi + HackSpace magazine is out. It’s lovely to see that the HackSpace ethos is coming through loud and clear, with lots of making articles in there with the Raspberry Pi goodness.

One of the articles is the first in a two part series about Python-Ish, a programming language I created by accident to control Hull Pixelbot robots. I want to take some of the mystery out of how programs get to run. In this article I’m all about the low-level run time part. I think it is worth a read, but then again I am a bit biased..

You can get the magazine in shops or buy a digital copy here.

Minox Cameras and "The Exchange" in HackSpace Magazine

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I meant to mention this earlier, but I’ve been too busy having fun. The June issue of HackSpace magazine is out and contains a couple of my articles. The first is about Minox photography and how you can use 3D printing to bring an old camera back into use. The second is all about “The Exchange”, a Raspberry Pi powered AI backend for the red telephone.

Robots in HackSpace

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My domination of the publishing world continues. In this month’s HackSpace magazine you can find episode 2 of my series about the Robot Operating System.

It was great fun to write. There’s a complete walkthrough of setting up ROS 2 on a Raspberry Pi using Docker in the lab part of the article. This makes it comparatively easy (if you use my scripts) to run ROS on a Raspberry Pi 5 running the latest Bookworm OS. It runs rather nicely on that platform, including the graphical tools.

Hull Pixelbot Rugby in HackSpace Magazine

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There are some great gadget ideas too

My Hull Pixelbot rugby article is in this month’s HackSpace magazine. It tells you how to add WiFi to your Raspberry Pi PICO powered robot and then control the robot from a web page. And maybe make a rugby team out of them.

And if you pick up a copy of the Raspberry Pi MagPi magazine (also a cracking read) you will find my article on making a haunted red telephone.

Redphone for Halloween

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Only a bit scary

The “RedPhone” lives. The bell sounds like a real phone. But the insides are now possessed by a Raspberry Pi running JavaScript…..

This runs on the local network

It hosts a web page into which you can type messages and send them to the phone. When you send the message the phone rings and if you pick up the receiver you hear a ghostly voice dictate the message to you. If you pick up the receiver to make a call you get the dial tone. If you dial “2” and replace the receiver the phone will ring a few seconds later and deliver a ghostly message of doom:

randomMessages = [
    "I know what you did last summer",
    "Is that you, Boris?",
    "Look out of the window.",
    "They are on to you.",
    "Look behind you."
    ];

Other messages may be available later….

It’s been great fun to build. You’ll be able to find out all about it an upcoming article in HackSpace magazine.

Magazine Takeover

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They are both jolly good reads

I’m in two magazines this month. Which is nice. If you pick up a copy of the latest HackSpace magazine you will find my article about creating a PICO Powered Bluetooth remote control for a light. This is known as the “milkshake” project because I put the device in an empty milkshake container. Delicious. Then, in MagPi magazine you can find a reprint of my article about making a chord keyboard. This is known as the “missing wires” project because I forgot to add some of the wiring to the design.

Blue Chord Keyboard now in Hackspace Magazine

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If you use both left handed and right handed keyboards at the same time you can channel your inner Rick Wakeman….

Issue 68 of HackSpace magazine is now out. On page 70 you can find my article that tells you how to create a Bluetooth connected chord keyboard using a PICO-W. There are lots of other great articles too. Well worth a read.

Bluetooth Chord Keyboard

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Now avaialble for left and right handed users with adjustable key positions

The Raspberry Pi PICO-W powered Bluetooth Chord keyboard (I call it “Blue Chords”) is now on GitHub. You can find it here. I’ve updated the code to use the latest version of the Raspberry PI PICO SDK and updated the PC design and matching case design.

I used the Kicadstepup plugin to import the board into the design

I’ve built some prototypes (you can see them at the top) but I’ve not built the final design yet. The project will be the basis of an article in an upcoming HackSpace magazine.

3D Printed Camera article now in Hackspace magazine

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One of the funnest articles I’ve written

The article about my 3D printed camera is now in HackSpace magazine, which you can find in all good newsagents. There’s lots of great stuff in there along with my few pages. If you fancy making a camera like this you can find the designs and lots of useful stuff here.

The camera is now light tight and works a treat

I took the picture above with the 3D printed camera. The amount of detail in the branches is very impressive.

Thick Printing

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This is the newly printed left hand version of the chord keyboard.

I’m printing some items for a HackSpace magazine article. This one is about making a Bluetooth version of the chord keyboard I made a while back. Today I printed the top of the left handed version of the keyboard. I’ve thickened up the top plate quite a lot. This has done a few things to the print job; perhaps the most notable thing is that it now takes over 6 hours to print. However, it has also added a really nice bit of extra “heft” to the keyboard.

Lots of things benefit from a bit of extra weight, and this is one of them. Up until now I’ve usually printed the thinnest structures I can get away with to save time and filament. However, I think from now on I’ll live with the extra time and cost and print things a bit thicker.

Spintronics and Tagjousts in HackSpace Magazine

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This month’s edition of HackSpace magazine is now out. It’s in the shops, or you can find it here. It’s contains a review wot I wrote of Spintronics. I’ve also made it into their Toys & Games item with TagJousts.

The magazine is, as always, a great read. There is nothing else on the market which has such a broad coverage of interesting stuff, from detailed descriptions of hardware and software projects to 3D printed guitars.