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Issue 80 April 2019 magpi.cc The official Raspberry Pi magazine
THE 50
B E R R Y P I
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ESSEN PLUS!
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TOP 10 Raspberry Pi HATs

WELCOME
WELCOME
to The MagPi 80
T
his month we have the 50 Best Tips for Raspberry Pi. That’s
a bold claim, but we think our lead feature (page 26) delivers.
The MagPi team worked together to bring you the best hacks,
tricks, and tips. The result is a compelling list of tricks with something
new for everybody. We all learnt something putting this feature Lucy
EDITOR
together – and we’re sure you will too. Hattersley
This is the first in a series of articles designed to be useful for Editor of The MagPi.
Lucy codes, crafts,
everybody, from beginners to seasoned experts. They’re ‘core features’ and creates wonky
robots. She speaks
that we’re trying to develop to ensure The MagPi is accessible to all. French (badly) and
mangles the piano.
We’re aware that some of our long-term readers want a little more One day she’ll get
to get their teeth into. That’s why on page 68 you’ll find our ham radio that pet dog.
magpi.cc
projects. We think ham radio and Raspberry Pi go hand-in-hand.
Meanwhile, Dave Honess – our favourite space buff – goes radio gaga
with an amazing Pictures from Space tutorial (page 62). With a radio
receiver, you can get pictures from audio files beamed directly from the
International Space Station as it passes overhead. We love it! GET A
That’s just one of many cool tutorials this month. PJ has written about RASPBERRY
using a TV HAT to convert video files PI 3A+
into comic books (page 54); KG has
built a karaoke machine (page 58);
PAGE 24
and Mike Cook is busy hacking the
new Lego Boost (page 38).
We’re super-happy with the way
this issue has come together. It’s
packed with great ideas from the
whole team. We hope you love it as
much as we do.
Lucy Hattersley Editor
magpi.cc 03
CONTENTS
Contents
> Issue 80 > April 2019
Cover Feature
26
Tips & tricks
Regulars
06 The world of Pi
92 Your letters
97 Next month
98 Final word
Project Showcases
12 A Whisper of Moths
16 E-ink Calendar 26
18 Underwater Drone
20 YogAI 12
22 Clapper
18
Underwater Drone A Whisper of Moths
DISCLAIMER: Some of the tools and techniques shown in The MagPi magazine are dangerous unless used with skill, experience, and appropriate personal protection equipment. While
we attempt to guide the reader, ultimately you are responsible for your own safety and understanding the limits of yourself and your equipment. Children should be supervised. Raspberry
Pi (Trading) Ltd does not accept responsibility for any injuries, damage to equipment, or costs incurred from projects, tutorials or suggestions in The MagPi magazine. Laws and regulations
covering many of the topics in The MagPi magazine are different between countries, and are always subject to change. You are responsible for understanding the requirements in your
jurisdiction and ensuring that you comply with them. Some manufacturers place limits on the use of their hardware which some projects or suggestions in The MagPi magazine may go
beyond. It is your responsibility to understand the manufacturer’s limits.
04 magpi.cc
CONTENTS
38 48
Tutorials
38 Lego Boost – Pi Bakery

44 Samba file server
48 Pygame Zero: AmazeBalls pt 3
Lego Boost Pygame Zero
54 Comic creator
76 58 Karaoke machine
62 Pictures from space
The Big Feature

68
Breakout Garden HAT

Ham Radio Projects
84
Reviews
76 Breakout Garden HAT

78 Zero Dongle
80 Top 10 HATs
82 Learn the command line
Community
84 Claire Pollard interview

86 This month in Raspberry Pi
Claire Pollard interview 90 Events
WIN
ONE OF
FIVE
KEYBOW
Mechanical keyboards
95
magpi.cc 05
THE WORLD OF PI
GPIO Zero 1.5 launched

Be more in control of your Python projects with the new version of GPIO Zero. By Rosie Hattersley
G
PIO Zero is a Python library with useful ModMyPi’s traffic light HAT with a piezo buzzer
bits of code that make it easier to and buttons.
control Raspberry Pi-powered physical For audible amusement, try the tweaked
hardware: LEDs flash, buzzers buzz, and version of Claire Pollard’s tonal buzzer. GPIO
wheels turn. It’s designed to make the Pi more Zero creator Ben Nuttall says the new software
accessible, especially for use in education. update includes the TonalBuzzer class, as well
Becoming a GPIO Zero hero has just become as a dictionary to help you choose suitable MIDI
a whole heap easier thanks to the launch of an notes and frequencies.
updated library of code, taking GPIO Zero to
version 1.5. Pairing devices
This is great news if you want to start using There’s a neat way to connect devices together
your Pi for physical computing projects such as using callback functions. “In GPIO Zero v1.5,
robots or home automation, since there’s now we’ve made connecting devices even easier,”
more guidance on how to get going. writes Ben. You can now use the following
Lots of kits that previously took a fair amount method to pair devices together:
Advanced makers can
create their own pin of coding are now natively supported. Step
factories to control
the GPIO pins on a
forward the Halloween-themed Pi board, Xmas led.source = button
Raspberry Pi board Tree with flashing LEDs, and the Jam HAT –
L ots of kits that previously took

a fair amount of coding are
now natively supported
06 magpi.cc GPIO Zero 1.5 launched

THE WORLD OF PI
As well as the standard pin factories (RPi.GPIO,

pigpio, RPIO, and native), seasoned users will
enjoy GPIO Zero’s support for custom factories.
For instance, Google has written its own pin
factory for the AIY Vision Kit (magpi.cc/imfAQZ).
This means you could use the pigpio library to
remotely control individual pins and sensors. If
you’ve struggled with the DistanceSensor class
in the past, update GPIO Zero to v1.5 and use the
pigpio pin factory for greater sensing accuracy.
To update GPIO Zero to the latest version,
enter the following Terminal commands:
sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3-gpiozero python-
gpiozero
For a complete list of what’s new in GPIO Zero

G
PIO Zero offers direct support for many popular hardware kits,
1.5, see the changelog: magpi.cc/vgTmJj. such as ModMyPi’s new Jam HAT
THE WORLD OF PI
Smart calendar built

with Raspberry Pi
Vitec GmbH is hoping to sell a smart calendar
with a Raspberry Pi at its heart. By Lucy Hattersley
S
mart calendars are a hugely popular
Raspberry Pi project, but not everybody
wants to make their own. Some people just
want to buy things.
One company hoping to bring a Raspberry Pi-
based calendar device to the masses is Vitec GmbH,
with its Smart Calendar Thync (vitec-visual.com).
“Managing the daily schedule, full of
appointments and tasks, is a nightmare for
most families,” writes Marc Roset, CEO and
Founder of Vitec GmbH. “Many businessmen and
Inside the Smart professionals find the compatibility of work and Interestingly, the Smart Calendar Thync features
Calendar is a custom family calendars almost impossible.” a gesture sensor interface. “This allows you to
circuit board with a
Pi Zero mounted on The Smart Calendar Thync supports the quickly and easily switch back and forth by moving
top of it synchronisation and connection of up to five your hand. A short upward movement allows you
Smart Calendar Thync different appointment calendars. Inside the case to display further information about your current
uses a Raspberry Pi to
is a Raspberry Pi Zero W powered by a battery, function,” says Marc.
bring a smart calendar
device to the masses running a 10.1-inch TFT display.
T he Smart Calendar
Thync features a gesture
sensor interface
“The simplest way is set up the product is via our
app,” he adds. The company has iOS and Android
apps. “We don’t use voice control for our product
because a lot of people fear that other people can
hear what they are saying.”
Light sensing
The Smart Calendar Thync also features an ambient
light sensor, which measures the brightness of the
surrounding area, regulates the brightness, and
optimises energy usage.
Users are able to mount the Smart Calendar
Thync on a wall or use the stand to place it on a flat
surface. A Kickstarter campaign for Smart Calendar
Thync starts on 7 April 2019.
08 magpi.cc Smart calendar built with Raspberry Pi

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THE WORLD OF PI
Autism-friendly
Code Clubs
Raspberry Pi has always been about making computing accessible; autism-friendly
Code Clubs seem a natural step, believes Rosie Hattersley
W
hen the original Raspberry Pi was born,
back in the distant days of 2012, it
was envisaged as a way of embracing
physical coding and computing in a world that had
become very app-based. Its central premise was to
allow anyone access to a computer and computing,
with cost a minimal barrier.
The lauded aims of Raspberry Pi and its focus
on giving school-age children, in particular,
coding and programming experience were
enthusiastically taken up.
One major programme run by the Raspberry Pi
Foundation is Code Club (codeclub.org), which
works with a global community of volunteers,
educators, and partners to run free coding
clubs where 9 to 13-year-olds build and share
their ideas.
Code Club says, “We think all children should
have the opportunity to learn to code, no matter
who they are or where they come from.” There are However, as an after-school activity, Code Clubs The club is small
but growing,
13,000 Code Clubs worldwide. Many of those in the are often lively and noisy, which isn’t a comfortable with six children
UK are school-based, while others take place in environment for some children. aged between 9
and 14 attending
libraries or youth clubs. In the summer of 2018, Nicola Tubbs from Kent the sessions
Libraries and Tim Cook from the National Autistic
Volunteers engage
Society, Dartford and Gravesham branch, discussed the children in a
variety of activities,
the idea of a Code Club that would be accessible including Scratch
to children on the autistic spectrum. Together projects and physical
digital making
they planned and helped promote a bi-monthly, opportunities
autism‑friendly Code Club at Gravesend Library
(magpi.cc/YDreMb) that now welcomes a regular
group of 9- to 14-year-olds (magpi.cc/GRioNB).
Parents are welcome too, if the group members
wish. Club members enjoy a quiet space, away from
the main part of the library, where they can learn
Scratch and work on physical computing projects.
The club is hosted by Nicola, Tim, and volunteers
from Digital Dens.
Autism-friendly Code Clubs magpi.cc 11

PROJECT SHOWCASE
A Whisper
of Moths An original Raspberry Pi
was recycled to act as
An art installation filled with hand-crafted moths the audio player, sensing
motion to trigger it
that move. Rob Zwetsloot looks around it
W
e always love to see art installations
that make use of the Raspberry Pi,
and A Whisper of Moths is a perfect
example. This particular project involved several
people from the Print Mill, which is part of
Macclesfield Community ArtSpace, along with
technical and labour support from IDST! (If
Destroyed Still True!), another ArtSpace group.
Macclesfield
MAKER
“The moths were made by local schoolchildren

Community
ArtSpace using recycled A4 plastic wallets that were drawn
on and/or filled with glitter, ironed between baking
A charity based in parchment and cut to shape,” Nick Young from the
Macclesfield and team tells us. “Some moths were also 3D-printed.”
run entirely by
The movement of the moths was simulated by
volunteers, it’s a
free workshop full projecting randomly positioned and sized circles
of multitalented onto the moths, which were hanging by fishing
members able to line from fine garden netting suspended from the The installation was interactive, with the sound
create A Whisper
of Moths. church balcony. of whispers being triggered as people walked
through, along with the projected circles of light to
magpi.cc/WNeWNR
simulate movement to some degree. How did such
an idea come about, though?
Lunar new year

“The Town Council approached Macclesfield
Community ArtSpace wishing to celebrate in
some form, Chinese New Year,” Nick explains.
“Macclesfield’s link with China is through silk
and therefore the suggestion was made to create
an installation that incorporated silk moths and
engaged the local schoolchildren in the making
The moths were process. Macclesfield is also striving to draw
made using attention to the problems of single-use plastic and
recycled, or by
recycling, materials so we chose to use plastic and recycle it.”
12 magpi.cc A Whisper of Moths

PROJECT SHOWCASE
The main attraction is the

display of moths created
by school students
The Pi Zero helped

control the random
shapes on the projector
Quick FACTS
> Using an original
Raspberry Pi Model
B was part of the
recycling efforts
> A lot of the project

was programmed
in Pygame
> The sounds have

been reused for
Halloween and
Christmas
> We’re currently in

the Year of the Pig,
hence the papier
mâché pig
> Macclesfield was

Even without the nice stained-glass light, the
butterflies themselves are very colourful once the world’s
largest producers
The project setup was quite involved – a lot of the
church was used! of finished silk
A Whisper of Moths magpi.cc 13

PROJECT SHOWCASE
Whispering to moths
As visitors walk into the church, the PIR

01 sensor picks them up and begins the
A Whisper of Moths sequence.
A dragon dance led After following a Chinese dragon puppet and

the visitors to the
The original Pi Model B begins to play church, where they papier mâché pig down the high street in a parade
02 a random sample of whispering sound would experience during the Chinese New Year festivities, people
A Whisper of Moths
effects, which is how the project gets its name. walking into the church would trigger the display.
“We had the added and unforeseen bonus of
coloured light filtering through the moths as
the sun shone through the huge stained glass
windows,” Nick recalls.
Pi connection
“We discussed motorising some or all moths, even
just with vibration motors, but discarded this as
inappropriate for a sustainable art-piece,” Nick
says. “We decided to have a moving pattern of light
[shone] around or onto the static exhibit to create
As the audio plays, random circles of light are the illusion of movement. We created a prototype
03 projected onto the moths hanging above the using metres of LEDs, but these were not bright
visitors, which – along with the whispering – gives an enough and on surveying the venue, an active local
illusion of movement. church, we realised that we could use a projector to
beam the light onto the art.
14 magpi.cc A Whisper of Moths

PROJECT SHOWCASE
Each butterfly was

painstakingly added
to the net
The stained glass

windows added
some unexpected
colour to the moths
e realised that we could

W
use a projector to beam
the light onto the art
“We used the first Raspberry Pi for the sound

because the simple movement sensor could
trigger and play many sound files, reusing an
existing setup, and a second Raspberry Pi Zero also
programmed with Pygame to display a series of
random white circles against a black background.”
The final setup was pretty simple, making use
of an old Pi Model B, a Pi Zero W, and PIR motion
sensor, plus the speakers and projection equipment.
Currently, the exhibition has been taken down.
However, the team are looking to set it up in a local
museum soon.
A Whisper of Moths magpi.cc 15

PROJECT SHOWCASE
The Raspberry Pi is placed in a case and tucked around the back.

Nothing stops it from being affixed to the back of the frame, however
E-ink
Calendar
Zonglin Li has proven e-ink displays are not
just for reading by creating a smart calendar
hub. David Crookes takes a look
S
ome project ideas are simple yet effective,
allowing makers to get creative with
otherwise unused items to produce
something practical or fun. In Zonglin Li’s case,
inspiration struck when he was attempting to find
a use for an e-ink screen he’d bought a long time
ago without a clear project in mind. “I came across
the box containing the screen and it reminded me
Zonglin
MAKER
that I should do something with it,” he says.

Li
At first, he considered turning it into a
Zonglin is a straightforward digital clock. “But I soon figured
senior student that it was impractical due to the long refresh time
at University of
– every minute would require a full update, which
Illinois, majoring in Some e-ink screens support rapid partial update with
Computer Science is visually annoying,” he explains. He then began multiple grey scales, so Zonglin is considering upgrading
and Psychology. to think about the kinds of information which to add real-time notification mirroring using Pushbullet
Trained to be a could tolerate a longer refresh period.
software engineer,
he also loves
“The project was not really ambitious at the manufacturer also had nice documentation for
tinkering with beginning and all I wanted initially was something Raspberry Pi, so it was easier to get started.”
cool hardware. that could show me the date and perhaps the He also quickly realised that the e-ink screen
magpi.cc/WwAoZP weather,” says Zonglin. From there, however, he would be a perfect fit. “I believed it would give a
had the idea of incorporating his daily activities, feeling of a real paper calendar that happened to
seeing the existence of the Google Calendar API as display up-to-date information,” he says. “The
an ideal opportunity. e-ink display also simplified the design, especially
if you wanted to put the device in the bedroom,
because it doesn’t need to be backlit to operate.
T he e-ink display simplified the design, Unlike using LCD, you don’t have to design the
logic for adjusting the brightness either.”
especially if you wanted to put the device
in the bedroom Widget designs
Even so, much of the effort went into coding,
with Zonglin coming up with ideas for widgets
Paper Pi before figuring how best to structure them. He
To start, he opted to use a Raspberry Pi because composed a date widget from a matrix of text
of its ability to run a full OS and its abundance widgets while the weather widget used Unicode
of GPIOs: “Having a full OS meant that I could text with a nice font for its icon and integrated with
use high-level programming languages which OpenWeatherMap API.
saved a lot of time, especially when it came to He also designed a widget for events using
Google OAuth and API integrations. The screen Google OAuth and Calendar API, adding an
16 magpi.cc E-ink Calendar

PROJECT SHOWCASE
As well as forecasting the

weather, the Google Calendar
API displays the temperature
and chance of rain
The widgets are rendered

to a buffer (a PIL image)
first before being copied
to the screen
An LED lights up when the

screen is being refreshed,
and a manual button has
been added too
Quick FACTS
> It uses a 7.5-inch
Waveshare e-ink
display HAT
> Forecasts are

interactive guide to create a config file and parser. The device is mains-powered, but Zonglin
is planning to try it with a battery once he’s delivered via
Finally, he sketched out each widget on paper, figured the average power consumption OpenWeatherMap
specifying the relative location of each component,
and worked out the best-looking sizes before > A Raspberry Pi 2, 3,
laying out their locations on the screen. or Zero can be used
“I tried my best to avoid hard-coding the offset
of each widget,” he reveals. “In this way, if I > It auto-updates
set the widgets to have a different size, all the once every hour
components in the widget will be resized as well.”
> The interface is
Once in place, Zonglin considered the look of
made up of widgets
the overall project, using the GPIOs for a manual
refresh button while also allowing for automatic
hourly updates. This ensured the information
does not become not too stale, especially
for weather.
To add some extra polish, the screen was placed
in a 7.5-inch photo frame and the electronics – the
Raspberry Pi, 330 Ω resistor, and breadboard – were
tucked around the back. The result is a good-
looking smart calendar. “The code can also be
ported with minimal effort should I get a screen of
a different size in the future,” he says.
E-ink Calendar magpi.cc 17

PROJECT SHOWCASE
Underwater Drone
Ievgenii Tkachenko not only took the plunge with a Raspberry Pi
but with his first Pi project too, as David Crookes explains
N
ever let it be said that some makers
won’t jump in at the deep end for
their ambitious experiments with the
Raspberry Pi. When Ievgenii Tkachenko fancied
a challenge, he sought to go where few had
gone before by creating an underwater drone,
successfully producing a working prototype that
he’s now hard at work refining.
Ievgenii
MAKER
Inspired by watching inventors on the Discovery

Tkachenko
Channel, Ievgenii has learned much from his
Ievgenii is a senior endeavour. “For me it was a significant engineering
Android developer challenge,” he says, and while he has ended up
from Kyiv, Ukraine.
submerging himself within a process of trial-and-
As well as writing
code, he loves error, the results so far have been impressive. The Raspberry Pi 3 sits in the housing and connects to a LiPo
battery that also powers the LEDs and motors
engineering
challenges and Pi dive
creating something
interesting
The project began with a loose plan in Ievgenii’s “I was really surprised that this small board has
and helpful. head. “I knew what I should have in the project a fully functional UNIX-based OS and that software
magpi.cc/GRSQHi as a minimum: motions, lights, camera, and a like the Node.js server can be easily installed,” he
gyroscope inside the device and smartphone tells us. “It has control input and output pins and
control outside,” he explains. “Pretty simple, but I there are a lot of libraries. With an Ethernet port
didn’t have a clue what equipment I would be able and WiFi and a camera, it just felt plug-and-play. I
to use for the drone and I was limited by finances.” couldn’t find a better solution.”
Bearing that in mind, one of his first moves Working with a friend, Ievgenii sought to create
was to choose a Raspberry Pi 3B, which he says suitable housing for the components, which
was perfect for controlling the motors, diodes, included a twin twisted-pair wire suitable for
and gyroscope while sending video streams transferring data underwater, an electric motor,
from a camera and receiving commands from a an electronic speed control, an LED together with
control device. a pulse driver, and a battery. Four motors were
attached to the outside of the housing and efforts
were made to ensure it was waterproof. Tests in a
bath and out on a lake were conducted.
Streaming video
With a WiFi router on the shore connected to the
Raspberry Pi via RJ45 connectors and an Ethernet
cable, Ievgenii developed an Android application
to connect to the Raspberry Pi by address and port
(“as an Android developer, I’m used to working
The LEDs are with the platform”). This also allowed movement
attached to
radiators to prevent to be controlled via the touchscreen, although
overheating, and a
he says a gamepad for Android can also be used.
pulse driver is used
for flashlight control When it’s up and running, the Pi streams a video
18 magpi.cc Underwater Drone

PROJECT SHOWCASE
Wires leave the housing

through cable glands
and sit in the water, but
they have been sealed
Quick FACTS
> The prototype
worked well
at a depth of
The camera was placed in
two metres
this transparent waterproof
case attached to the front
> It can be controlled
of the waterproof housing The drone uses four brushless motors
via an Android app
– two positioned horizontally and two
vertically. Ievgenii would like to add
> A lot of testing
two more verticals for better control
was required
> It operated best in

a calm lake
from the camera to the app – “live video streaming > Sand and algae can
is not simple and I spent a lot of time on the clog the motors
solution” – but the wired connection means the
drone can only currently travel as far as the cable
length allows.
In that sense, it’s not perfect. “It’s also hard
to handle the drone and it needs to be enhanced
with an additional controls board and a few more
electromotors for smooth movement,” Ievgenii
admits. But as well as wanting to base the project
on fast and reliable C++ code and make use of a
USB 4K camera, he can see the future potential and
he feels it will swim rather than sink.
“Similar drones are used for boat inspections
and they can also be used by rescue squads or
for scientific purposes,” he points out. “They
can be used to discover a vast marine world
without training and risks too. In fact, now that I
understand the Raspberry Pi, I know I can create
almost anything, from a radio electronic toy car to The Underwater Drone being
a smart home.” tested out in the shallows
Underwater Drone magpi.cc 19

PROJECT SHOWCASE
YogAI
This marvellous magic mirror features an AI yoga instructor
to guide you through your poses. Phil King limbers up
W
e’ve seen many ‘magic mirror’
projects over the past few years,
featuring a TV screen behind the glass
to show useful information, but YogAI (magpi.
cc/nQTDgX) takes the concept to a whole new
level by providing an AI personal trainer to
Salma guide and correct your yoga positions.
MAKER
Mayorquin Self-confessed fitness-nuts Salma Mayorquin

and Terry and Terry Rodriguez thought that having a personal
Rodriguez trainer could be a way to keep track of their fitness
progress, so why not try to make a virtual one?
A team of
machine-learning “With [deep learning] models like pose estimation,
practitioners, we figured there was a way we could make a
The AI has been trained to detect 14 poses, including three
software
program that could track how we were exercising versions of the Warrior
developers,
hardware tinkerers, and started experimenting from there,” says Terry.
and security “YogAI guides users through a flow of yoga While a prototype magic mirror only took the
enthusiasts poses, offering generally helpful advice when the experienced makers a week to build, training the AI
interested in
camera senses a user not in the correct pose,” to recognise yoga poses in real-time was a trickier
exploring real-world
applications of AI. explains Salma. “At the heart, YogAI uses pose task. “We need our computer vision models to run
estimation to find reference key points on the quickly so that we have enough resolution in time
smellslikeml.com
body. This is used to understand and classify to identify the move,” reveals Terry.
common yoga poses.”
Strike a pose
A Raspberry Pi 3 interprets the camera images in
A Raspberry Pi 3 interprets the camera real-time, detecting key body points to display the
pose on the mirror and classify it using a deep-
images in real-time, detecting key body learning model trained with a dataset of around
35,000 samples.
points to display the pose on the mirror However, the pair found that the Pi could
and classify it only run image inference at one frame every 4–5
seconds, resulting in lag. A workaround was soon
found: “Shrinking our pose estimation models
Users interact with YogAI through both visual down using TensorFlow Lite, we were able to
feedback via the mirror display, and a voice bring our frame rate from 0.2 fps to 2.5 fps,” says
interface – using the Snips AIR voice assistant Salma. “For faster inference, we will look for
(snips.ai) – which enables the user to give spoken ways to reduce the model further. We also believe
commands to start, stop, pause, and restart a yoga upgrading to the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3
session. YogAI also talks back through the Flite will increase the performance significantly.”
voice synthesizer to guide the yogi to achieve the “Overall, the accuracy across a dozen common
correct poses. poses is roughly 80%,” divulges Terry. “Not
20 magpi.cc YogAI
PROJECT SHOWCASE
A camera feeds
images to the AI model
for pose detection
The user can give voice

commands to control
the yoga session
The smart mirror

displays a ‘heat map’ of
the pose and its name
Quick FACTS
> It can currently
recognise 14
yoga poses
> TensorFlow Lite

is used for the AI
surprisingly, we find similar pose variants, e.g.
pose training
warrior poses, can be a source of confusion. When
the head/face is blocked, the pose estimates > The software is
degrade, which impacts our classification of poses available on GitHub:
like downward dog.” magpi.cc/emKnDd
More intense exercise > Terry and Salma

As well as using the system for yoga, Salma and are experimenting
Terry are planning to adapt YogAI to monitor more with adding a life-
energetic workouts. “We’re interested in strength like avatar
training, and others have suggested dance and

> Other Pi projects
karate katas,” says Terry. “We think YogAI is well-
include a seizure
positioned to perform more general health and prediction wearable
personal wellness tasks.” (magpi.cc/OsMEve)
“We want to integrate with popular health
wearables,” adds Salma. “A smart watch with an
accelerometer and heart rate monitor can introduce
They used a
a lot of important context to bring YogAI closer to 2×3 ft one-way
mirror and built
our vision for a smart mirror yoga instructor and
a wooden frame
toward a personal wellness platform.” around it
YogAI magpi.cc 21
PROJECT SHOWCASE
The Raspberry
Pi Clapper
Your wishes fulfilled at the clap of your hands? Nicola King applauds a very clever creator
A
sh Puckett thought her life could do with control it with a Pi, you can control it with claps.
a little simplifying, so she came up with a This includes home automation using relays,
thunderclap of an idea, as she recalls: “I controlling smart kitchen appliances, and lighting.”
rolled out of bed one morning, clapped my hands, Ash used the Raspberry Pi for her make because,
and remembered I don’t have clap-powered “I knew from experience the Pi was more than
lighting. What better way to remedy the situation capable. You can really take advantage of the GPIO
than to create my own Raspberry Pi Clapper?” pins to create some awesome projects. I wanted
What better way indeed? Ash then took a to use something that could handle a complex
Ash
MAKER
Puckett Raspberry Pi, along with a USB microphone, and project, if desired. […] The Raspberry Pi is perfect
created something elegantly simple, but useful at for this kind of creative endeavour.”
Ash is an the same time. Amazingly, the entire project was Inspired yet? Ash has received some very
independent conceptualised and completed in one day, then made positive feedback from the Pi community: “I’ve
tech writer from
into an online tutorial (magpi.cc/CcMzdP). also seen people come forward with their own
Appalachia. When
she isn’t busy “The challenge is in creating a guide with Clapper project ideas – which I adore. Plenty of
illustrating, she’s flexibility,” she reveals. “I wanted to create a starting people have proposed their own modifications,
knuckles-deep
point for anyone with a similar project in mind. recommended specific hardware, and provided new
in a Raspberry Pi,
creating awesome Whether you want clap-powered music or a clap- avenues for Clapper projects to take root.”
new projects to powered garage door, there’s a common foundation She adds, “Many people have sound-activated
share with the world. they all share, and I wanted to provide that.” technology on their minds. It’s not surprising –
ashpuckett.com almost everyone has a voice-activated assistant in
Your clap is my command their pocket. As people realise they can use audio-
So, how does it work exactly? “The Raspberry Pi based control for their Pi projects, we’ll see a surge
is programmed to listen for claps using a USB in those ideas. The Clapper project is just a small
microphone,” explains Ash. “You can use this to component of that movement.”
trigger custom events. Pretty much anything you can
control with Python can be manipulated using the Handy…crafter
power of clapping.” As to the future, Ash has plans aplenty in terms of
what she hopes to develop. “I’ve got a whole list
I knew from experience the Pi was of Raspberry Pi projects ready to go – from home
security systems to an automated greenhouse.
more than capable. You can really take These projects will use the Raspberry Pi as a
centralized control system that can be remotely
advantage of the GPIO pins to create accessed and controlled. You can follow me on
howchoo (magpi.cc/Demoez) to keep up with my
some awesome projects latest Pi projects. And you better believe that if I
can power them with claps, I will.”
The possibilities, in terms of what you can control, The simplicity of the Clapper arguably makes it a
are vast. “I’ve been able to control an LED, initiate very appealing project. Give it a go yourself, or see
some funky tunes, and run a few custom scripts. The what other clapping-connected ideas you can come
proof of concept has been demonstrated – from here up with! Send us your projects @TheMagPi on
it’s a matter of imagination,” says Ash. “If you can Twitter or email magpi@raspberrypi.org.
22 magpi.cc The Raspberry Pi Clapper

PROJECT SHOWCASE
A simple clap of the hands is

used to trigger the device
Quick FACTS
> Claps are detected
using Nikz Jon’s
pi‑clap script –
magpi.cc/GDpKhv
> You can follow

Ash’s howchoo
tutorial at
magpi.cc/CcMzdP
> The PyAudio library

is used to detect
sound from a
USB mic
> You could trigger

many different
items with a
clap – use your
imagination!
> Ash’s other Pi

projects include
a smart alarm
clock and a music-
streaming device
A Pi 3B+ is connected to a Once activated,

USB mic to detect the sound a blue LED is lit
The Raspberry Pi Clapper magpi.cc 23

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24 magpi.cc
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magpi.cc 25
FEATURE
THE 50
E R R Y P I
RASPB
R R A S P B IAN
MASTE 01
Boot from USB
R RY PI
You can boot some Pi models
A S P B E
& THE R
(3B, 3B+, 3A+, 2B v1.2) from a
USB port instead of using an SD card.
KS,
It’ll be faster and more reliable for
E S E H AC long-term use, plus you get lots of
WITH TH
extra storage space. See the official
documentation at magpi.cc/eXHfjq.
TS & T R I C KS 02
Power over Ethernet
HIN The official Raspberry Pi PoE
HAT enables you to power
the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ via
an Ethernet cable. Great for those
projects that require a constant
wired connection.
26 magpi.cc The 50 Best Raspberry Pi Tips

FEATURE
01
08
09 02
10 06 03
04
07
Touchscreen
07 The Raspberry Pi Touch Display
05
(magpi.cc/CAPxtI) gives users
the ability to create all-in-one,
integrated projects such as tablets,
infotainment systems, and embedded
projects. Its ribbon cable connects to
the DSI port present on all Raspberry
Power it up
05
Pi boards (except Raspberry Pi Zero
Audio output
03
The power requirements of the and Zero W).
All Pi models have a composite Raspberry Pi increase as you
GPIO pins guide
out port for connecting to
analogue devices. Pi B+ and later
make use of the various interfaces.
The GPIO pins can draw 50 mA safely, 08 Open a Terminal and enter:
combine the audio out and composite distributed across all the pins; an
out on to the same 3.5 mm jack plug. individual GPIO pin can only safely pinout
This requires a particular type of lead, draw 16 mA. The HDMI port uses
with audio left on the tip, audio right 50 mA, the Camera Module requires …for a quick visual guide to the GPIO
on ring 1, ground on ring 2, and video 250 mA, and keyboards and mice can pins. Or enter:
on the sleeve. See magpi.cc/tDfjLV. take as little as 100 mA or quite a bit
more. Buy the Official Power Supply pinout -x
Switch sound options
04
and check the power rating of your
The HDMI port outputs audio devices: magpi.cc/xfszUR. …to open the web browser and point it
as well as video. If your display to the interactive model at pinout.xyz.
Use a camera
06
lacks a built-in speaker, you’ll want
Hardware diagrams
09
to use the speaker jack. If so, right- You can use a webcam, but
click on the volume icon in the menu Raspberry Pi has a dedicated You can see the mechanical
bar and switch from HDMI to Analog. option: the Camera Module drawings for the Raspberry
Alternatively, use the command line: (magpi.cc/jbKzbf). This is attached Pi 3B+ (and all other models)
to the CSI (Camera Serial Interface). on the Raspberry Pi website:
amixer cset numid=3 1 The Camera Module is used to take magpi.cc/WWFUji.
high-definition video and still
Wireless hotspot
10
Set the last number to ‘1’ for Analog, images. It’s easy to use for beginners,
or ‘2’ for HDMI. Use raspi-config to but has plenty to offer advanced Many Raspberry Pi models
change the audio setting at boot: users if you’re looking to expand feature a wireless LAN adapter
your knowledge. There are lots of to connect to local network. But you
sudo raspi-config examples online of people using it for can also use the access point to create
time-lapse, slow-motion, and other a wireless hotspot. The process is a
Choose Advanced Options > Audio and video cleverness. You can also use the little long, but it’s great for learning
‘Force 3.5 mm (‘headphone’) jack’ or libraries Raspberry Pi has developed more about how wireless LAN works.
‘Force HDMI’ to set this as the default. to create visual effects. Read more at magpi.cc/nnriRT.
The 50 Best Raspberry Pi Tips magpi.cc 27

FEATURE
A N T I P S
RASPBI
R a s p b e rr y Pi operating
he
Customise t
Add some
cks.
e tips and tri
visual flair to
w it h t h e s the Raspbian
system
interface using
ersley
the Screensaver
By Lucy Hatt
program
Demo programs
11 Raspbian comes with a bunch of demo sudo apt-get update
programs that demonstrate various sudo apt-get install xscreensaver
features. Find them here:
cd /opt/vc/src/hello_pi This may take a few minutes. The

screensaver application will then appear
They’re written in C. Compile them with: under Preferences in the main desktop
menu. This provides many options for
./rebuild.sh setting up the screensaver, or disabling it.
Understand config.txt
13
You will now be able to run the .bin files in
each example folder. For instance, run: Note: this is for advanced users only!
The Pi uses a configuration file instead
cd hello_tiger of the BIOS found on a conventional PC. This
./hello_tiger.bin file is normally accessible as /boot/config.txt
from Linux, and must be edited as root.
…to see a large rotating image of a tiger on the
screen. For more info, see magpi.cc/tpNaGV. sudo nano /boot/config.txt
Screensaver
12
Any changes will only take effect after you
By default, the Raspberry Pi Desktop have rebooted your Raspberry Pi. After Linux
Raspbian has a doesn’t have easy-to-use screensaver has booted, you can view the current active
selection of demo
software installed. Firstly, you should install settings using the following commands:
programs hidden in
the opt directory the X Windows screensaver application.
vcgencmd get_config <config>
…displays a specific config value; for

example, vcgencmd get_config arm_freq.
vcgencmd get_config int
…lists all the integer config options that are

set (non-zero).
vcgencmd get_config str
…lists all the string config options that are

set (non-null).
A range of options can be edited in the

config.txt file – see rpf.io/configtxt.

FEATURE
Y T I P S
SECURIT
y o u r P i t o the outside
cting out security
When conne t o t h in k a b
need
world, you’ll
Change your password
16 With the standard install of Raspbian, the
default username is pi and the password
Free up space
14
is raspberry. If you haven’t at least changed
You can save space on your SD card this password, anyone can log into your Pi!
for projects, documents, and code by Go to Menu > Preferences > Raspberry Pi
removing some of the programs provided in Configuration. In the System tab, click Change
Raspbian by default.You can remove software Password, enter one, confirm it, and click OK.
from the command line:
Keep Raspbian up to date
sudo apt purge mathematica
sudo apt clean
17 From time to time, security
vulnerabilities are found in software, so
sudo apt autoremove it’s always best to get the latest versions on a
regular basis. In a Terminal, type sudo apt-
But it's much better to choose Menu > get update to update your package lists, then
Preferences > Recommended Software. Clear sudo apt-get dist-upgrade to get the latest
the tick next to the unwanted program and version of the packages on your system.
click OK.
Install Fail2ban
Kernel update (& rollback) 18
15
If someone wants to hack into your Pi,
If you use the standard Raspbian update/ they may try to guess your username
upgrade process, this will automatically and password. It will probably take a lot of
update the kernel to the latest stable version. attempts, but this is called ‘brute-forcing’. To
This is the recommended procedure. However, prevent this, you can install a program called
sometimes you may wish to update to the Fail2ban. Install using sudo apt install
latest ‘bleeding edge’ or test kernel. fail2ban and a user will be banned for ten
minutes if they fail login five times.
sudo rpi-update
Change default SSH port
The rpi-update utility will download the 19 If you change the default SSH port,
latest (unstable, testing) kernel version and anyone trying to connect would need to
copy all required files onto your system. Note know which port to use. To alter it, sudo nano
that the latest kernel from rpi-update is /etc/ssh/sshd_config and change the line
not guaranteed to work correctly! Make sure #Port 22 to read Port 2222 (without the #) or
that it doesn’t conflict with your distribution another memorable number. Save and exit
packages. It doesn’t provide a way of (CTRL+O, ENTER, CTRL+X), then restart SSH
automatically uninstalling the files. with sudo service ssh restart.
To revert to the current stock Raspbian
Turn off interfaces
20
kernel after trying rpi-update or a custom
kernel, you need to reinstall both these you don’t need
packages, by running: The safest way to stop hackers is to not
have any network connection, but another way
sudo apt-get install --reinstall of shutting down the system a bit more is to
raspberrypi-bootloader raspberrypi- go into Main Menu >→ Preferences >→ Raspberry
kernel Pi Configuration and select the Interfaces tab.
Make sure everything you don’t need is disabled.

FEATURE
K I N G T I P S
G A N D M A
CO D I N
sp berry Pi.
o m y o u r m akes with Ra
Get more fr
ersley
By Lucy Hatt putting your project together, and less time
figuring out how to get it to work. Bookmark
Switch to Thonny
21
the documentation: gpiozero.readthedocs.io.
If you’re still programming in Python
Make circuit diagrams
23
IDLE or using Text Editor, then switch
to Thonny. It is just as easy as the other Fancy making a circuit board diagram
programs, but has a simple debugger that like the ones you see in The MagPi
makes it much easier to fix flaws in your magazine? The software you’re looking for is
code. Press CTRL+F5 instead of F5 to run Fritzing. It’s currently in beta, and we mostly
a program step-by-step. Unlike more use the Windows version to create the
advanced IDEs, you don’t need to set images you see in the magazine. However, a
breakpoints. Press F6 for a big step and F7 version is available for Raspberry Pi.
for a small step. It’s ideal for makers because
it enables you to fix problems, but isn’t so sudo apt-get update
involved that you get completely absorbed in sudo apt-get install fritzing
code and so you can carry on with your build.
Restart your Raspberry Pi and you’ll find the
GPIO Zero
22
program under Menu > Programming. We are
Make sure you learn to code using the currently having trouble opening the parts
The Thonny
IDE (integrated GPIO Zero Python library (now in version bin on the Raspberry Pi; if any readers have a
development 1.5). This boilerplate library is designed fix, then please let us know.
environment) makes
it easier to debug to take the hassle out of using electronics
Raspberry Pi and Arduino
24
your programs components and kits with the Raspberry Pi.
without getting
too distracted With GPIO Zero you can spend more time The Raspberry Pi works fantastically
well with an Arduino attached. Despite
looking visually similar, the two boards
are very different. The Raspberry Pi is a
complete single-board computer, while the
Arduino range are microcontrollers.
They work fantastically well together
because the Arduino is handy for controlling
parts, with the Raspberry Pi better for the
higher-level interface and master control.
You can install the software to control an
Arduino from Raspberry Pi:
sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install arduino
Arduino programs are called ‘sketches’, and

are based on the C programming language.
For more info, see our book on learning C
(magpi.cc/learn-c-book) and our guide to
Arduino and Pi in issue 67 (magpi.cc/67).

FEATURE
Codewars the Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge. We use
25
Codewars is a good
web resource for
a half-size breadboard in our diagrams, so if practising and flexing
One of the best ways to boost your
you get that type you’ll find it much easier to your programming
programming skills is to complete muscles
follow our projects: magpi.cc/dXHByV.
challenges. If you are looking for some Learning the
programming challenges, then sign up for ‘Western Union’
Second-hand
splice technique will
28
Codewars on your Raspberry Pi. The website make your soldering
joints stronger
(codewars.com) has a video game style, and Get to know your local second-hand
you get points and advance through levels by (‘thrift’) store. Used objects can be a
completing challenges (kata). We’ve even seen great source of inspiration, and upcycling old
the latter being used in job interviews and to tech with new Raspberry Pi parts is a popular
gain entry to coding boot camps. pastime. High-profile maker Martin Mander
has rescued old radios, televisions, and toys.
Learn to solder
26
Follow him on Twitter (@MartinWMander)
There’s a technique to soldering wires for inspirational ideas.
together called the ‘Western Union’ or
Share early and often
29
‘Lineman’ splice, and you should learn it if
you’re going to solder (magpi.cc/mckKVW). It The best way to get inspiration and help
was developed during the introduction of the for your project is to share it with the
telegraph (hence the name), and the wrapping Raspberry Pi community. Last issue we ran
pattern is designed to tighten as the two ends #MonthOfMaking on Twitter, to encourage
pull against each other. our readers to share projects with one another.
But don’t wait till next year – share your project
Make a maker kit
27
on our forum (magpi.cc/forum), Facebook
We can’t recommend highly enough (magpi.cc/facebook), or Twitter (@TheMagPi).
putting together a maker kit. This should The more other readers see your project, the
contain a wide range of electronics parts, bits, more likely you’ll be to finish it.
and tools. Find a good components case and
Tips for makers
30
put in it a selection of resistors, capacitors,
LEDs, buttons, potentiometers, a piezo Element14 has two collections of Tips for
buzzer, and a breadboard with lots of jumper Makers packed with interesting ideas.
cables. You can pick up kits and parts from Sign up with the Element14 website to access
most of the Raspberry Pi resellers, or visit them: magpi.cc/XQaCyC.

FEATURE
G T I P S
NE T WORKIN i
o re a b o u t Raspberry P
wm s
Need to kno re are some of the basic
He ady
networking? s t in g t ip s if you’re alre
tere
and some in You can connect your Pi to a local area
p
networked u
network and the internet using an RJ45
cable or by configuring WiFi
Wired or wireless
31
which will provide similar information. Your
You’ll Need The Raspberry Pi has two standard ways local IP address will be the number that looks
of connecting to a network: with an something like 192.168.0.34. You can also
> N
etwork cable Ethernet cable or on-board WiFi (on newer find your IP address by hovering over the
> Internet router models). The Ethernet cable is usually either network icon (top right) of your desktop.
a Cat5e or Cat6 (for fast networks) type, with
> Internet connection
IPv4 and IPv6
33
an RJ45 connector on each end. One end plugs
into a router or hub and the other end into the The terms IPv4 and IPv6 are descriptions
Raspberry Pi. Wired connections are generally of the internet protocol and address.
faster than WiFi and will connect as soon as IPv4 uses 32-bit numbers for the address
the cable is plugged in. Home wireless network and looks something like: 192.168.1.23. As
connections can usually be connected to by the internet has now grown so large, the
just selecting the network and typing in a limited number of available IPv4 addresses
password – see magpi.cc/HiDkyk. has become a problem. A new version of
IP (IPv6), using 128 bits for the IP address,
Know your IP
32
has been defined. In July 2017, the final
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is definition of the protocol was published,
a number that is allocated to your although IPv6 has been in use for over 20
Raspberry Pi so that other computers know years. An IPv6 address looks something like:
where to find it on the network. There are fe80:94c:38c8:4600:7b33:64bb:baf7:e866. On
several ways to find your Pi’s current IP a home network you will normally be using
address. In a Terminal window, there are a IPv4 format addresses, but look out for that
You can use the couple of commands you can use. The old to change in the future.
curl tool to download command (which still works) is ifconfig.
Useful commands
files, such as PDFs of
34
The MagPi issues There is a new shorter command now, ip,
You can do quite a lot with network
commands in the Terminal. Some
commands need to be installed first. The
ping command is there by default. If you type
ping and then either an IP address or a web
domain, it will tell you how long it takes to
send a message to that computer/server and
then get a reply. Cat is also pre-installed.
Type cat /sys/class/net/wlan0/operstate
to see the status of your WiFi connection.
Install whois with sudo apt-get install
whois and then type whois with a domain
name and you will find the registration
details of that domain.

FEATURE
Networking files
35 The Raspberry Pi has several files where
it holds details about networking. It’s
quite useful to know where some of these
are, as you may need to change some of the
information for custom configurations. The
file /etc/hosts has a list of names that map
to IP addresses. You could have an entry that
says ‘192.168.0.3 myserver’ and that would
mean that if you typed ‘myserver’ into a web
browser address bar, the network would try
to connect to 192.168.0.3. Other useful files
are /etc/networks, which has network names can connect to any Telnet server. For example, You can use lots
of different tools
mapped to IP addresses; /etc/protocols, which enter telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl 23 to find out about
has a list of all the network protocols that can to see an ASCII version of Star Wars, or try your Raspberry Pi
network connections;
be used; and /etc/services, which has a list of telnet mtrek.com 1701 for a Star Trek you can even play
all the network services available. game. There are lots of Telnet sites still online games in the
Terminal window!
out there, some of which can be found at:
Network traffic
36 If you want to know a bit about what is
telnet.org/htm/places.htm.
PiServer
happening between your Pi and the rest of
the network, there are a few commands you can 38 PiServer is a useful tool for networking
install. A simple stats command is available many Raspberry Pi boards together
with sudo apt-get install vnstat. When without needing SD cards in them. For info on
you run this command, it will give you some how to set it up, go to magpi.cc/RQDQXx.
basic data transmission totals. If you want
Downloading files with curl
39
some extra tools, you could install iptraf-ng,
which has a menu of different tools and filters You can download files directly in the
to analyse the network traffic. To see some Terminal with the curl tool. Use curl -O
real-time data transfer stats, install bmon, <URL>. See magpi.cc/JrKoTA for more info.
which shows data quantities per second.
Headless wireless
37
Telnet
Although Telnet is a very old networking
40 If you use the Raspberry Pi in a ‘headless’
mode (without the Raspbian interface), it
system (it was first designed in 1969), it can be tricky to connect to a wireless network.
is still available and can be installed on the You will need to define a wpa_supplicant.conf
Raspberry Pi using sudo apt-get install file for your particular wireless network and
telnet. Telnet is a bit like a very early version put this file in the boot folder. See here for
of websites and when this is installed, your Pi more information: magpi.cc/RHviuV.

FEATURE
E T R I C K S
COMM AND LIN
line
g t o u p y o ur command most
Lookin s in troduces the
P J E v a n
game? t s and tricks command1; command2; command3
r s h o rt c u
popula
To only proceed if the previous command
Piping
41
has succeeded:
Applications in Linux systems,
such as Raspbian, have three ways command1 && command2 && command3
of communicating with you and other
applications: standard in (stdin), standard For example:
out (stdout), and standard error (stderr).
Output from a command-line application mkdir ~/myDir && cd ~/myDir && nano
arrives on stdout and you can use the pipe myFile.txt
character ‘|’ to send that output directly into
another application, like this: …will create a directory, move into it, and
open up the nano text editor with a new file,
ls -l | wc -l myFile.txt. You can save this line somewhere
for future use or create an alias (see Tip 47).
Here we get a long-form listing of the current
Run background tasks
44
directory and pipe that output into ‘wc’, a
counting application. The -l argument means Running a command ‘in the background’
‘count the lines’, so we now have a ‘new’ app enables you to issue other commands
that tells us how many items are in a directory. while it works. If you’re using the Desktop,
You can chain as many commands as you wish the simplest solution is to open another
to achieve complex tasks. Terminal window. Alternatively, to have
a process run in the background, add an
Output redirection
42
ampersand (&) at the end of the command:
Try this:
very-long-command &
curl https://cataas.com/cat
This works well, but any output to stdout and
The command downloads a cat image – but stderr will appear on your console screen. To
you’re on the Terminal, which can’t show avoid this, use ‘nohup’:
graphics. The image arrives as a lot of
nonsense on stdout. We can use redirection to nohup very-long-command &
save it as a file like this:
Now all output is written to nohup.log in
curl https://cataas.com/cat > cat.jpg your current directory.
Watching log files

45
The ‘>’ operator tells Raspbian to put
everything arriving on stdout into the file Sometimes when a process is generating
instead of your screen. You can also use ‘>>’ output, you might need to follow what’s
which appends to an existing file, or ‘<’ to happening. For example, your web server isn’t
feed the contents of a file into a command. working quite right, so you can troubleshoot
the problem by looking at the logs. To show
Run multiple commands
43
the contents of any file on-screen:
You can put multiple commands
together on a single line so that they cat text.txt
execute one after the other:

FEATURE
However, if the log file is huge, you’ll struggle

to cope. To show the file in ‘pages’:
less text.txt
To just see the last few lines:
tail text.txt
Best of all, to ‘follow’ the log file as it grows:
tail -f text.txt
46
A miscellany of shortcuts
S H O OT I N G
TROUBLE
Tilde – The tilde character ‘~’ always refers
to your home directory in paths. So cd ~
always takes you home (as does cd on its own).
TAB autocompletion - Whenever possible,

Raspbian will attempt to complete the
Find out more
TIPS
49
Some command-
command name you are typing. Try typing whoa line applications
take on a basic Many commands come
followed by TAB. It will expand to whoami. This graphical
appearance to with a huge array of ‘arguments’ that
also works for paths. make them easier control behaviour. These are in the form of
to use. The most
History - Forgotten that command? Your Pi likely you are to ‘switches’ (simple flags) or ‘parameters’ that
see is raspi-config provide additional info such as an input file.
is keeping track. Pressing the up arrow key
repeatedly goes through previous commands. Most commands have an accompanying ‘man’
You can also run history to get a full list. page (short for manual). To see if a ‘manpage’
exists for your command, just enter:
!! - Two exclamation marks means ‘the
previous command’. Forgot to use sudo? Don’t
man command
type the command again, just enter sudo !!.
You can even learn about ‘man’ itself:
Using aliases
47 If there’s a long command you’re going man man
to be using a lot, create an alias for it.
Aliases are kept in a hidden file (non-existent Alternatively, many commands respond to the
by default) called .bash_aliases, in the home switch --help (or -h for short) to provide a
directory. To create or view contents: summary of options.
Get in remotely
50
nano ~/.bash_aliases
We’ve all been there: happily working
For each alias you want to create, enter a line away in Raspberry Pi Desktop and
following this pattern: something goes awry. Now the screen has
locked up, your Doom high score is lost, and
alias howmany="ls -l | wc -l" the only option is to unplug the Pi, which
risks data corruption. Well, you may be able
Now you can run howmany for that command. to get in using SSH, the ‘Secure SHell’ which
allows you to log into your Pi (so long as you’ve
It’s got stuck!
48
already enabled SSH on it) from another
Stuck with a crashed program on your computer and get to the command line:
screen? To gain access back to the
prompt, try CTRL+C to stop the process, or ssh raspberrypi.local
CTRL+Z to put it in the background. Now enter
killall <commandname>. You can use ps ax to Then, if you get to a prompt:
show a list of running processes. Still there?
Try sudo killall <commandname>. As a last sudo shutdown -h now
resort, use sudo kill -9 <processid> (get
the process ID from ps ax). …and your Pi is rescued.

£12.99
200 pages of
Official
Raspberry Pi
THE
RASPBERRY PI
PROJECTS BOOK
Amazing hacking and making projects
from the makers of magazine
Inside:
How to get involved with the Pi community
The most inspirational community projects

Essential tutorials, guides, and ideas
Expert reviews and buying advice
able
Availw
no magpi.cc/store
plus all good newsagents and:
TUTORIAL
Hack Lego Boost

Part 01
with Raspberry Pi
The Lego Boost robotics kit is designed to make learning to build and
program robots fun and easy. Let’s hack it with some Python
T
What is Lego’s Boost?
he Lego Boost is designed to be run from
an app on an Android or iPad tablet,
01 Unlike the previous Mindstorms robotics
using a graphics programming language systems from Lego, the Boost system has no
Mike
MAKER
not unlike Scratch. It makes a good job of this controlling brick to run code – instead, instructions
Cook and is easy for kids to pick up, but these sorts representing the program are sent one at a time
Veteran magazine of languages have their limitations. They can directly, over Bluetooth, in real-time to the Move
author from the old be inflexible and difficult to read, especially as Hub. This has built-in motors, LEDs, tilt sensor,
days, writer of the the code gets bigger. By using Python, much and push-button. You can also plug into the Hub
Body Build series,
more complex programs can created, many that a smaller motor and a distance sensor or colour
plus co-author of
Raspberry Pi for are not possible with graphics-based code. So, sensor. Also, Mindstorms uses Lego Technic beams
Dummies, Raspberry give your Boost a boost by letting Python do for most constructions, known as a studless system,
Pi Projects,
the controlling. whereas the Boost uses the more conventional,
and Raspberry
Pi Projects studful brick form of construction. See Figure 1.
for Dummies.
magpi.cc/TPaUfT
Colour sensor
attached to Port C
of the Move Hub
You’ll Need
> L
ego 17101 Boost External Motor
Creative Toolbox attached to Port D
magpi.cc/JtUiDe of the Move Hub
> R
aspberry Pi
3/3B+/3A+/Zero W
38 magpi.cc Hack Lego Boost with Raspberry Pi

TUTORIAL
Figure 1
mike’s_demo.py DOWNLOAD
THE FULL CODE:
> Language: Python magpi.cc/dhaAam
001. # #!/usr/bin/env python3

002. # coding=utf-8
003. # Mike's Demo - put the LEGO Boost trough its paces
004. # By Andrey Pokhilko & Mike Cook Feb 2019
005.
006. from time import sleep
007. import time
008. from pylgbst import *

Figure 1 Studful bricks on the left, studless beams on the right 009. from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub, COLORS
010. from
pylgbst.peripherals import EncodedMotor, TiltSensor,
Amperage, Voltage
Lego’s software 011.
02 The standard Lego software provides a good 012. def main():
structured learning system where the user builds 013. print("Mike's Demo - put the LEGO Boost trough its paces")
a bit, programs it, and then moves on to building 014. conn=get_connection_auto()
015. try:
more. The big project is Vernie the robot and we’d
016. movehub = MoveHub(conn)
recommend you do this first because the parts
017. demo_voltage(movehub)
are already bagged up to make construction of
018. demo_button(movehub)
this project easy. Vernie is built up in stages and 019. demo_led_colors(movehub)
the code you are asked to run at each stage gets 020. demo_motors_timed(movehub)
increasingly complex. You can’t progress to the 021. demo_motors_angled(movehub)
next level without trying, or pretending to try, the 022. demo_port_cd_motor(movehub)
current phase. We recommend you try this first, 023. demo_tilt_sensor_simple(movehub)
not least for the firmware updates it can offer to 024. demo_tilt_sensor_precise(movehub)
your Hub – see Figure 2. 025. demo_color_sensor(movehub)
026. demo_motor_sensors(movehub)
027. sleep(1)
028. print("That's all folks")
029. finally:
Libraries
03 There are a few libraries for connecting Boost
030.
031.
conn.disconnect()
to Python – see a summary at magpi.cc/iNfUQg 032. def demo_voltage(movehub):

from Jorge Pe, author of the original library. He 033. print("Reading voltage & current for a short time")
hacked the system by using a Bluetooth protocol 034. def callback1(value):
sniffer. These days, Lego has released the protocol 035. print("Amperage: %.3f" % value)
documentation at magpi.cc/YfiAbL, but it’s a heavy 036.
037. def callback2(value):
read. We tried a few libraries and it seems the most
038. print("Voltage: %.3f" % value)
developed and actively supported one is pylgbst
039.
040. movehub.amperage.subscribe(callback1, mode=Amperage.MODE1,
Figure 2 granularity=0)
041. movehub.amperage.subscribe(callback1, mode=Amperage.MODE1,
granularity=1)
042.
043. movehub.voltage.subscribe(callback2, mode=Voltage.MODE1,
granularity=0)
044. movehub.voltage.subscribe(callback2, mode=Voltage.MODE1,
granularity=1)
045. sleep(5)
046. movehub.amperage.unsubscribe(callback1)
047. movehub.voltage.unsubscribe(callback2)
048.
049. def demo_button(movehub):
050. global notPressed
051. print("Please press the green button")

Figure 2 The Lego Boost program environment
running on an iPad or Android
Hack Lego Boost with Raspberry Pi magpi.cc 39

TUTORIAL
from Andrey Pokhilko. In fact, during the course of …and change it to:
Top Tip writing this, a new version was released. It is still
not finished but, with a little tweaking, it is good. COLOR_ORANGE = 0x08
Colour sensor
testing To save the changes, press CTRL+X, then Y,
and ENTER.
Installing the pylgbst library
The colour sensor
only works when 04 First off, we need to install some
the object is
dependences. Open a Terminal window and enter:
between about
Documentation
3 and 5 mm. Use
tiles like part sudo apt-get install python3-pip
06 The bulk of the documentation is in the
4566179 and sudo pip3 install pexpect README.md file and we found that not all of it
4560181 to test sudo pip3 install pygatt works with the Raspberry Pi. But, it does contain
the colours. some short single-function examples. Basically,
Next, get the library: to get the Move Hub to do things, you send it a
command, as you might expect; however, to get
wget https://github.com/undera/pylgbst/ information back from the Move Hub, you have to
archive/master.zip subscribe to the appropriate stream. When you do,
unzip master.zip you specify the name of a function that will be called
cd pylgbst-master when there is new data from whatever sensor you
sudo python3 setup.py install subscribed from. You must unsubscribe from the
sensor before your Python program finishes.
Fixing the colours

05 Demo example
There seems to be an error in one of the files
defining the colours for the RGB LED. Fix this by
07 In the library’s examples folder is a demo.py
opening a Terminal and entering: program; unfortunately, this will not run without
error as is – it seems to be more designed for fault

Figure 3 The top
of the minimum sudo nano /usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist- finding on the Bluetooth connections than showing
demo build
packages/pylgbst/constants.py things working. We have rewritten this to add extra

Figure 4 The front functions and correct the syntax errors – see the
of the minimum
demo build Scroll down using the cursor keys until you see: mike’s_demo.py listing. While it will run with any

Figure 5 The end
Move Hub, incorporated into a model or not, we
of the minimum COLOR_ORANGE = 0x09 found it best to use a basic setup that didn’t run
demo build
away off the desk when the motors moved. Also,
adding wheels to the motors made it easy to turn
Figure 3 Figure 4 them when testing the motor read angle function.
Preparing the Hub

08 Refer to Figures 3 to 5 with these
instructions. Get the Move Hub and fix on top of
it the sensor (part 6182145) and the motor (part
Figure 5 6181852) and plug them into ports C and D. It
doesn’t matter which port you use, the software
will find them. Next, put a red axle stub (part
4142865) in each of the two Hub motors, and the
external motor. Fit a wheel (part 4662228) on each
of the Move Hub’s axles, and a wheel and tyre
(parts 6092256 and 4619323) onto the external
motor. Finally, add two long beams (part 4508661)
under the hub to stop the wheels from moving it.

TUTORIAL
mike’s_demo.py (continued)
052. notPressed = True degrees left & right")

053. 106. motor = None
054. def call_button(is_pressed): 107. if isinstance(movehub.port_D, EncodedMotor):
055. global notPressed 108. print("Rotation motor is on port D")
056. if is_pressed : 109. motor = movehub.port_D
057. print("Thank you button pressed") 110. elif isinstance(movehub.port_C, EncodedMotor):
058. else: 111. print("Rotation motor is on port C")
059. print("Now it is released") 112. motor = movehub.port_C
060. notPressed = False 113. else:
061. 114. print("Motor not found on ports C or D")
062. movehub.button.subscribe(call_button) 115. if motor:
063. while notPressed: 116. print("Left")
064. sleep(0.4) 117. motor.angled(45, 0.3)
065. sleep(0.4) 118. sleep(3)
066. movehub.button.unsubscribe(call_button) 119. motor.angled(45, -0.3)
067. 120. sleep(1)
068. def demo_led_colors(movehub): 121.
069. # LED colors demo 122. print("Right")
070. print("LED colours demo") 123. motor.angled(45, -0.1)
071. for colour in range(1,11): 124. sleep(2)
072. print("Setting LED colour to: %s" % 125. motor.angled(45, 0.1)
COLORS[colour]) 126. sleep(1)
073. movehub.led.set_color(colour) 127.
074. sleep(1) 128. def demo_tilt_sensor_simple(movehub):
075. 129. print("Tilt sensor simple test. Turn Hub in
076. def demo_motors_timed(movehub): different ways.")
077. print("Motors movement demo: timed") 130. demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt = 0
078. for level in range(0, 101, 10): 131. limit = 10 # number of times to take a reading
079. levels = level / 100.0 132.
080. print(" Speed level: %s" % levels) 133. def callback(state):
081. movehub.motor_A.timed(0.2, levels) 134. demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt += 1
082. movehub.motor_B.timed(0.2, -levels) 135. print("Tilt # %s of %s: %s=%s" % (
083. print("now moveing both motors with one command") demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt, limit, TiltSensor.TRI_
084. movehub.motor_AB.timed(1.5, -0.2, 0.2) STATES[state], state))
085. movehub.motor_AB.timed(0.5, 1) 136.
086. movehub.motor_AB.timed(0.5, -1) 137. movehub.tilt_sensor.subscribe(callback,
087. mode=TiltSensor.MODE_3AXIS_SIMPLE)
088. 138. while demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt < limit:
089. def demo_motors_angled(movehub): 139. sleep(1)
090. print("Motors movement demo: angled") 140. movehub.tilt_sensor.unsubscribe(callback)
091. for angle in range(0, 361, 90): 141.
092. print("Angle: %s" % angle) 142. def demo_tilt_sensor_precise(movehub):
093. movehub.motor_B.angled(angle, 1) 143. print("Tilt sensor precise test. Turn device in
094. sleep(1) different ways.")
095. movehub.motor_B.angled(angle, -1) 144. demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt = 0
096. sleep(1) 145. limit = 50
097. 146.
098. movehub.motor_AB.angled(360, 1, -1) 147. def callbackTilt(roll, pitch, yaw):
099. sleep(1) 148. demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt += 1
100. movehub.motor_AB.angled(360, -1, 1) 149. print(
101. sleep(1) "Tilt #%s of %s: roll:%s pitch:%s yaw:%s" % (demo_
102. tilt_sensor_simple.cnt, limit, roll,pitch,yaw))
103. 150.
104. def demo_port_cd_motor(movehub): # Move motor on port 151. # granularity = 3 - only fire callback function
C or D when results change by 3 or more
105. print("Move external motor on Port C or D 45 152. movehub.tilt_sensor.subscribe(callbackTilt,

TUTORIAL
Figure 6a Figure 6b

Figure 6 Changing Running Mike’s demo
the command
so that IDLE or
09 Make sure Bluetooth is turned on by clicking
to do with the author not using a Raspberry Pi in
his testing. Note, there is another problem but
Thonny will run in
supervisor mode
on the Bluetooth icon on the top menu bar, run the this is down to Lego, as it also happens on the
Python code, and immediately push the green button tablets running the official software. Colours set or
on the Move Hub. The LED next to this will start reported as cyan are actually green, so we have to
flashing to indicate that the Bluetooth Hub is looking cope with this in our code.
for something to pair with. This will turn a steady
blue when connected and the demo will then start,
printing out instructions on the screen. After the
Move Hub connection problems
battery’s voltage and current have been read out, the
program will ask you to press the green button; you
12 Here at the Bakery we have two Raspberry
need to do this for the program to advance. Pi boards: one with the current Raspbian release,
and the other the previous one. Oddly enough, we
found that running normally was fine with the
older release, but with the newer one the code
More demo instructions
10 After the green button is pressed, the
needed to be run in supervisor mode in order for it
to connect. This can be done by typing sudo IDLE3
distance sensor is tested; this repeats for 100 in a Terminal window. If you want to permanently
measurements. You can change the distance run IDLE in the supervisor mode from the desktop,
sensor reading by waving your hand in front of it: go to the IDLE 3 menu entry, and right-click.
it returns a value in inches, to the nearest inch, for Then choose the Properties menu, and select the
distances above one inch; for smaller distances, it Desktop Entry tab. Now edit the command box
returns finer values. The program converts this into to put ‘sudo ’ in front of what is there. The same
millimetres for display. The tilt sensor tests require applies for Thonny – see Figure 6.
you to pick up and turn the Hub, and the motor
angle read requires you to turn the motor wheels by
hand. When no movement of the wheels has been
detected over the last five seconds, the demo ends. In conclusion
Top Tip Now we’ve got the basics going, we’re all ready to
do some interesting stuff. Next month, we’ll make
Lego part a game showing how we can use our Lego Boost
Further examples
numbers
11 The library’s examples folder also contains
with the Pygame framework.
On the back of the other examples. Unfortunately, they don’t work on

cardboard play the Raspberry Pi due to the method used to include Disclaimer
mat is a picture
packages. The from . import * line, which means
and part number LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of
for all parts in the from the current directory import everything,
companies, which does not sponsor, authorise, or
Boost set. returns an error message saying the parent
endorse this article.
directory is missing. This might have something

TUTORIAL
mike’s_demo.py (continued)
mode=TiltSensor.MODE_3AXIS_FULL, granularity=3) 199. resetTimeout = True

153. while demo_tilt_sensor_simple.cnt < limit: 200. demo_motor_sensors.states[movehub.motor_A] = param1
154. sleep(1) 201. posA = param1
155. movehub.tilt_sensor.unsubscribe(callbackTilt) 202.
156. 203. def callback_b(param1):
157. def callback_color(color, distance=None): # returns 204. global resetTimeout,posB
to nearest for distances > 1 inch 205. last_b = demo_motor_sensors.states[
158. global limit movehub.motor_B]
159. demo_color_sensor.cnt += 1 206. if last_b != param1:
160. correctColor = color 207. resetTimeout = True
161. if color == 5: # to correct for error in sensor 208. demo_motor_sensors.states[movehub.motor_B] = param1
162. correctColor = 6 209. posB = param1
163. if distance != None: 210.
164. metric = distance * 2.45 # distance in mm 211. def callback_e(param1):
165. else: 212. global resetTimeout,posE
166. metric = 0 213. last_e = demo_motor_sensors.states[
167. print('#%s/%s: Colour %s, distance %.2fmm' % ( movehub.motor_external]
demo_color_sensor.cnt, limit, COLORS[correctColor], 214. if last_e != param1:
metric)) 215. resetTimeout = True
168. 216. demo_motor_sensors.states[
169. def demo_color_sensor(movehub): movehub.motor_external] = param1
170. global limit 217. posE = param1
171. print("Colour & distance sensor test: wave your 218.
hand in front of it") 219. movehub.motor_A.subscribe(callback_a)
172. demo_color_sensor.cnt = 0 220. movehub.motor_B.subscribe(callback_b)
173. limit = 100 # number of times to take a reading 221. external = False
174. try: 222.
175. movehub.color_distance_sensor. 223. if movehub.motor_external is not None:
subscribe(callback_color) 224. demo_motor_sensors.states[
176. except: movehub.motor_external] = None
177. print("No colour & distance sensor found") 225. external = True
178. sleep(2) 226. movehub.motor_external.subscribe(callback_e)
179. return 227.
180. while demo_color_sensor.cnt < limit: 228. timeOut = time.time() + testTime
181. sleep(0.5) 229. while timeOut > time.time():
182. # sometimes gives a warning - not sure why 230. if resetTimeout :
183. movehub.color_distance_sensor.unsubscribe( 231. if external :
callback_color) 232. print(
184. "Motor A position %s \t Motor B position %s \t
185. def demo_motor_sensors(movehub): External Motor position %s" % (posA, posB, posE))
186. global resetTimeout, posA, posB, posE 233. else:
187. testTime = 5 234. print("Motor A position %s \t Motor B
188. print("Motor rotation sensors test, move by hand position %s " % (posA, posB))
any motor") 235. timeOut = time.time() + testTime
189. print("Test ends after %s seconds with no change" 236. resetTimeout = False
% testTime) 237.
190. print() 238. movehub.motor_A.unsubscribe(callback_a)
191. demo_motor_sensors.states = 239. movehub.motor_B.unsubscribe(callback_b)
{movehub.motor_A: None, movehub.motor_B: None} 240.
192. resetTimeout = False ; external = False 241. if movehub.motor_external is not None:
193. posA = 0 ; posB = 0 ; posE = 0 242. demo_motor_sensors.states[
194. movehub.motor_external] = None
195. def callback_a(param1): 243. movehub.motor_external.unsubscribe(callback_e)
196. global resetTimeout,posA 244.
197. last_a = demo_motor_sensors.states[movehub.motor_A] 245. if __name__ == '__main__':
198. if last_a != param1: 246. main()

TUTORIAL
Build a
Lucy Samba file server
MAKER
Hattersley
Lucy is the editor Use Samba/CIFS to share a Raspberry Pi directory
of The MagPi
magazine. She
enjoys hacking and
with other computers on a network
fixing technology,
and building quirky
I
projects. She’s
done the Samba all
t’s easy to use a Raspberry Pi as a Samba We also assume you’re using a 32GB (or smaller)
weekend long! file server where you can store backups and microSD card, which provides a reasonable amount
magpi.cc share files from all the other computers on of storage space without requiring any extra steps
your network. to make it accessible. However, if you need extra
Samba is the Linux implementation of the SMB/ storage, it’s possible to mount a large external USB
CIFS file-sharing standard used by Windows PCs drive and create a Samba entry for it.
and Apple computers, and widely supported by Alternatively, if you want to keep things
media streamers, games consoles, and mobile apps. compact, you can install Raspbian on microSD
With Samba activated, you can quickly copy files cards of up to 256GB, although we think it’s
from a computer on your network to a Raspberry wiser to install Samba on an external drive and
using wireless LAN (or a direct Ethernet connection). use a smaller microSD to boot Raspbian and
This tutorial assumes that you’ll use a keyboard, connect to it.
mouse, and monitor to set up your file server; We suggest checking non-working SD cards
alternatively, you can enable SSH (magpi.cc/ssh) online (magpi.cc/2q97aGO) before you buy, to
and connect to it remotely from another computer make sure you get one that’s fully compatible with
on your local network. the Raspberry Pi.
The Samba configuration file is

located at /etc/samba/smb.conf
You’ll Need
> R
aspberry Pi
> m
icroSD card
> K
eyboard and
mouse for setup The [share] section in Samba’s
configuration file contains the details
> N
etwork and
router (Ethernet of a directory shared on the network
recommended)
44 magpi.cc Build a Samba file server

TUTORIAL
Top Tip
Status report
You can see the
status of the
Samba drive using
sudo service
smdb status.
And you can use
smbd restart to
turn the service
off and on again.
Activate Samba support in

Windows 10 and you’ll be
able to access the shared
directory over a network
Once set up, you can mount your home file is fully updated, and install Samba using APT. Open
server on all the other computers on your a Terminal and type:
network, and use it as a convenient place to store
everything from music files you want to share sudo apt update
with your housemates, to backups of important sudo apt upgrade
documents and save-game files you’d like to share sudo apt install samba samba-common-bin
between computers.
We recommend using a wired Ethernet Answer Y when prompted.
connection for stability and fast transfer speeds.
The project will still work if you connect your
Raspberry Pi via WiFi, although performance will be
Create shared directory
affected, particularly when it comes to copying over
large files.
03 Now we’re going to create a dedicated
shared directory in our home directory.
sudo mkdir /home/pi/shared

Install Raspbian
01
Enter the credentials
(username and
Download the latest version of NOOBS You can put it anywhere, but ours is in the home password) created
(or the latest Raspbian Stretch with Desktop directory (it makes it easier to access without during the setup
process to access
image file) and install it to a microSD card. See adjusting permissions). You’ll be able to access this the Samba share
magpi.cc/quickstart if you’re unsure on how to
set up a Raspberry Pi for the first time. Insert the
microSD card into your Raspberry Pi and connect
the keyboard, mouse, and HDMI cable. We suggest
you connect an Ethernet cable between your
Raspberry Pi and modem/router (otherwise use the
wireless LAN icon to connect to a wireless network
when booted up). Attach the power cable to boot up
the Raspberry Pi.
Install Samba
02 Samba is available in Raspbian’s standard
software repositories. We’re going to update our
repository index, make sure our operating system
Build a Samba file server magpi.cc 45

TUTORIAL
Use testparm to test

the edits you make
to smb.conf
directory from other computers on your network. of the file and add the configuration code from the
Files you drop in here are accessible on other smb-pi.conf listing. Press CTRL+O to save the file,
computers, and files you drop into the directory and CTRL+X to exit nano.
from other computers will appear on your Pi.
Configure Samba Looking at the configuration file

04 Now we need to edit Samba’s configuration
05 The Samba configuration file uses the
file to make the shared directory visible to other same format as Windows .ini files, with sections
computers on the network. First, let’s make a surrounded with square brackets. The commands
backup just in case you want to look at the original. are case-insensitive and ignore white space. Let’s
take a closer look at some of the lines in the file…
sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/
The location of the shared folder:
smb.conf_backup
path = /home/pi/shared
Now let’s edit the Samba configuration file. Enter:
Set this to ‘no’ to turn off the service:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
available = yes
The smb.conf file is packed with detailed
File Explorer
information on the Samba configuration (it’s a
displaying the Samba This is the list of users allowed to log in to
share in its Network good idea to read through it all). Scroll to the end
the service:
valid users = pi
Whether this share is seen in the list of available

shares in a net view and in the browse list:
browsable = yes
Ensures that users can write to files (the default

is no):
writable = yes
Take a look at the Samba.org documentation for

more information on all the configuration options
46 magpi.cc Build a Samba file server

TUTORIAL
available in smb.conf (magpi.cc/alEJZY). Test out

the Samba configuration file with testparm. Enter
the following:
testparm
…and you should see a series of ‘Processing

section’ tests. At the end it should say ‘Loaded
services file OK’. If not, head back to the start of
this step and check you have entered the additional
setup text correctly.
A file being copied from the

Windows PC computer to
the shared directory on the
Create a password
06 Before we start the server, you’ll want to set
Raspberry Pi
a Samba password. Enter:
smb-pi.conf DOWNLOAD
sudo smbpasswd -a pi THE FULL CODE:
Enter a simple and memorable password for > Language: ASCII magpi.cc/pFBYLi
testing (you can create a more secure one later by
rerunning the command at any time). 001. [share]
Now restart your Samba server: 002. path = /home/pi/shared
003. available = yes
sudo service smbd restart 004. valid users = pi
005. read only = no
The Samba service will restart and the shared drive 006. browsable = yes
will now be available on the network. 007. public = yes
Turn on SMB in Windows

07 Samba used to be installed by default
see RASPBERRYPI in the list of devices. Click it
and the ‘Enter network credentials’ window will
in Windows, but it has recently become an appear. Enter your username pi and the password
optional installation.
In Windows 10, click on the Search bar and type
you created in Step 6. Click ‘Remember my
credentials’ if you want to save the password, and
Top Tip
‘Control Panel’. Click on Control Panel in the then click OK.
Reboot
search results. Now click ‘Programs’ and ‘Turn The File Explorer will now display the shared
everything
Windows features on or off’. Scroll down to find directory. You can drag files and folders from
‘SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support’ and click the Windows to the shared folder and they will be If you’ve set
‘+’ expand icon to reveal its options. Place a check copied to your Raspberry Pi. it all up and
in the box marked ‘SMB 1.0/CIFS Client’. Click have checked
OK. This will enable Samba client support on your everything, try
restarting your
Windows 10 PC so it can access the Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi
Find the Pi on a Mac
09 Samba works across many different devices.
and Windows
computer.
And it’s perfectly possible to access the shared Sometimes this
Find your Pi on the network
08 You’ll now be able to find your Raspberry Pi
folder from a Mac computer, or even an iOS or
Android device (with the right app). Open a new
helps Windows
find the drive on
the network (once
file server (named RASPBERRYPI by default) from Finder window on a Mac and choose Network in
the shared drive
any device on your local network. the sidebar. Click on ‘raspberrypi’ and ‘shared’
appears, we find
Click on the File Explorer icon in Windows and to access the directory. As with Windows, you can it stable).
choose the Network option in the sidebar. You will drag files directly to and from the Raspberry Pi.
Build a Samba file server magpi.cc 47

TUTORIAL
Code an isometric
Part 03
adventure game:
AmazeBalls
Pygame Zero in 3D. Let’s make some baddies and
dynamite in this last part of the series
W
Common update code
e’ll start from where we left off in the
last part and add some extra elements
03 We can use exactly the same updateBall()
to make a more challenging game. function as we do for the player, and that will
Mark
MAKER
Vanstone We’re going to add some baddie balls that roam deal with all the animation and movement of
around the maze, pushing walls about – so even the enemy from one block to the next. All we
Educational if you know how to get to the finish, you may need to do is add another call to updateBall()
software author find your path is blocked. To give our player an after the one we have in our Pygame Zero
from the nineties,
author of the
antidote to being blocked in, we’ll add some update() function. But this time, rather than
ArcVenture series, dynamite for them to pick up and use. passing the player dictionary to the function,
disappeared into we pass the enemy1 dictionary by writing
the corporate
updateBall(enemy1). This means that if we set
software wasteland.
Rescued by the our enemy ball moving, all the changes to the data
Changing colours
Raspberry Pi!
magpi.cc/YiZnxL
01 Previously we had our ball bouncing around
will be done in the same way as the player ball.
the maze by moving the drawing position of

@mindexplorers
the map so that we are always viewing the area
Drawing the enemy
around the ball. Now we’ll add some more balls,
but these will be working against the player so we
04 Although we now have a way to update the
need to make them a different colour. We can do animation of our enemy ball, we also need to write
this quite easily with a paint app like GIMP. Just some code to draw it on the screen. This needs to
load each frame and use a tool called ‘colorize‘ (in be a bit different than the player ball because the
the Colors menu in GIMP). Make sure you save the enemy ball needs to move as the map is scrolled.
You’ll Need frames as a different name; for example, put an We have to use both the map position and the sx
‘e’ for enemy in front of each file name. and sy values of the ball to work out where it needs
> R
aspbian Jessie or
newer to be drawn. See figure1.py for the updates to the
drawMap() function. You will see we are calculating
> T
iled (free map
the block position (bx and by) and then adding the
editor)
Recycling code sx and sy values.
mapeditor.org
02 We already have one ball bouncing around
> A
n image
manipulation
the maze – to get more balls, we’ll try to reuse the
program such as code that we already have. We can duplicate the
Enemy brains
GIMP, or images
available from
dictionary data at the top of our code that we have
for the player and call it enemy1 instead of player.
05 If we run our program now, we should see
magpi.cc/fPBrhM
You will want to change the x and y values in the an enemy ball bouncing away in the middle of
> T
he latest version of data to something like 13, which will put the enemy the maze. You’ll notice that both balls bounce at
Pygame Zero (1.2) ball near the middle of the maze. Now that we have exactly the same time – if you wanted to have the
our enemy defined, we can recycle some code. bounces non-synchronised, you could change the
48 magpi.cc Code an isometric adventure game: AmazeBalls

TUTORIAL
Collected dynamite can be

used to demolish walls that
block the player
The player can pick up

Enemy bouncing balls sticks of dynamite
move the walls of the maze
Changes to drawMap() to
incorporate the enemy ball
initial frame value where enemy1 is declared at the

top of the code. Now let’s define a function called
updateEnemy(); this will make the enemy ball figure1.py
move and also push some walls around.
> Language: Python 3
001. def drawMap():

Getting random 002. psx = OFFSETX
06 We are going to get the enemy to move 003. psy = OFFSETY-32
around in a random way so, as we have done 004. mx = psx - player["sx"]
previously in this series, let’s use the random 005. my = psy - player["sy"]+32
module to generate some random movement. At 006.
the top of our program we import the module with 007. for x in range(player["x"]-12, player["x"]+16):
from random import randint. Let’s define our 008. for y in range(player["y"]-12, player["y"]+16):
updateEnemy() function as def updateEnemy(e):. 009. if onMap(x,y):
The e variable is the enemy dictionary that we will 010. b = mapData["data"][y][x]
pass into the function when we call it. Now let’s 011. td = findData(mapData["tiles"], "id", b)
define some directions. We can do this with a list 012. block = td["image"]
of x and y directions; for example, if we had x and y 013. bheight = td["imageheight"]-34
written as [0,1], that would mean move no blocks 014. bx = (x*32)-(y*32) + mx
in the x direction and one block in the y direction. 015. by = (y*16)+(x*16) + my
016. if -32 <= bx < 800 and 100 <= by < 620:
017. screen.blit(block, (bx, by - bheight))
018. if x == player["x"] and y == player["y"]:
One direction 019. screen.blit("ball"+str(player["frame"]),
07 So, we can define all four directions as edirs (psx, psy))
= [[-1,0],[0,1],[1,0],[0,-1]]. And then all 020. if x == enemy1["x"] and y == enemy1["y"]:
we need to do is pick one of them with a random 021. screen.blit("eball"+str(enemy1[
number. To choose a random integer between 0 and "frame"]),(bx + enemy1["sx"],(by-32)+enemy1["sy"]))
3, we write r = randint(0,3). Now we can reuse
Code an isometric adventure game: AmazeBalls magpi.cc 49

TUTORIAL
figure2.py
> Language: Python 3
001. def doMove(p, x, y):

002. global mazeSolved
003. if onMap(p["x"]+x, p["y"]+y):
004. mt = mapData["data"][p["y"]+y][p["x"]+x]
005. if mt == 1 or mt == 3: When the dynamite is used, it changes all the blocks around
006. p.update({"queueX":x, "queueY":y, the player (shown in pink here) to floor blocks
"moveDone":False})
007. if mt == 3 and p == player: Moving the walls
008. mazeSolved = True
10 So, going back to our updateEnemy()
009. return mt function, we need to first generate a random
number for our direction and then move the enemy
Changes to doMove() to make sure that the enemy ball doesn’t trigger the finish condition ball in that direction. But if it moves towards a
wall, then we attempt to move that wall block in
the direction the enemy ball is moving. The other
the doMove() function that moves the player, but thing we need to check is that there is a space for
Top Tip use it for our enemy. We do need to make a couple the wall to move into. We need to make a call to
of alterations to the doMove() function. The first is doMove() using the enemy1 dictionary (passed into
Dynamic map to return the id of the block that is being moved to. updateEnemy()) and then, if the block id is 2 (a
data Then we can detect if a wall block is in the way; if wall), call another function called moveBlock().
it is, we can really mess things up for the player by
You can change
moving the blocks around – sneaky, huh?
any block on
the map by
Changing places
changing the id
in mapData. You
11 We need to define the moveBlock()
Making a move
could have lots
of fun animating 08 The other problem that we have with the
function and we will pass it the x and y block
position in the map data and also the direction
map elements in doMove() function is that it detects if the player values that we are using to move the enemy ball.
the update()
has landed on the finish and if we use the same First, the function will check that we are moving
function.
code for the enemy, we may get the finished data within the map area and then it will check
condition triggered by the enemy instead of the that the block we are moving the wall to is a floor
player, so we need to change the mazeSolved block (id 1). If this all checks out, then we copy the
condition to include a test to see if it’s the player id of the block we are moving to the new position.
we are dealing with. Have a look at figure2.py to Have a look at figure3.py to see the updateEnemy()
see these two changes to the doMove() function. function and the moveBlock() function.
When we’ve made those changes, we can go back
to our updateEnemy() function.
What are we doing?

12 The figure3.py code may look a bit daunting
Dynamic blocks
09 So far, all the blocks have stayed in the
in places, so let’s have a look at the detail. The
updateEnemy() function is basically defining four
same place, but because they’re all represented directions to move in and then we are saying: if the
as numbers in our map data, we can change the enemy is not currently moving, then get a random
numbers in the data and we’ll see the maze change direction and pass the x and y values of that
There are several on screen. For example, if a block has id 2, it is a direction to the doMove() function. If the block we
ways of creating wall block. If we change the data to say that it is id are moving to is id 2, then move the block using
images for games.
This dynamite was 1, we’ll see the wall disappear and there will be a the location we are moving to and the direction
created in a free 3D
floor block in its place. So, we can make changes to values. Then zero the screen x and y coordinates
modelling program
called Blender the maze as the enemy ball bounces around. (sx and sy) of the enemy dictionary.

TUTORIAL
figure3.py
It’s all relative
13 You will notice that if the enemy is > Language: Python 3
moving, then we check to see if we are on frame
seven (when the ball actually moves from one 001. def updateEnemy(e):
block to another in the data) and if so, we fix up 002. edirs = [[-1,0],[0,1],[1,0],[0,-1]]
the coordinates so they are now relative to the 003. if e["moveX"] == 0 and e["moveY"] == 0:
new map location rather than the old one. The 004. r = randint(0,3)
moveBlock() function just checks directly with the 005. if doMove(e, edirs[r][0], edirs[r][1]) == 2:
mapData data to check that the block can be moved, 006. moveBlock(e["x"]+edirs[r][0],e["y"]+edirs[r]
moves the data from the source location to the [1],edirs[r][0],edirs[r][1])
target location, and sets the source location to be a 007. e["sx"] = e["sy"] = 0
floor block. 008. else:
009. if e["frame"] == 7 and e["movingNow"] == True:
010. if e["sx"] == 12: e["sx"] -= 32
011. if e["sx"] == -12: e["sx"] += 32
Multiple enemies! 012. if e["sy"] == 6: e["sy"] -= 16
14 When all that is done, we just need to add 013. if e["sy"] == -6: e["sy"] += 16
updateEnemy(enemy1) after our updateBall() 014.
calls in the Pygame Zero update() function. Now, 015. def moveBlock(mx,my,dx,dy):
it may be that we consider that one enemy ball 016. if onMap(mx+dx,my+dy):
is not enough to make the game interesting and 017. d = mapData["data"][my+dy][mx+dx]
to make a second one is very easy now. We just 018. if d == 1:
need to duplicate the enemy1 dictionary and call 019. mapData["data"][my+dy][mx+dx] =
it enemy2, change the starting x and y to perhaps mapData["data"][my][mx]
25, make calls to updateBall(enemy2) and 020. mapData["data"][my][mx] = 1
updateEnemy(enemy2) in the update() function
and before you know it you have a second enemy Updating the enemy ball and moving blocks if walls are in the way
ball. You could make as many as you like, or maybe The updated update() function to include two enemy balls
put them in a list to be more efficient if there are
more than three.
figure4.py
A bit one-sided > Language: Python 3
15 Now that we have our baddies messing up
our maze, it’s going to get pretty difficult for our 001. def update(): # Pygame Zero update function
player to get through to the finish, so it’s time to 002. global player, timer
level the playing field, in this case quite literally. 003. mt = 0
Let’s introduce some dynamite into the mix! We’ll 004. if player["moveDone"] == True:
need to make a tile graphic for the dynamite that 005. if keyboard.left: mt = doMove(player, -1, 0)
we can use in the Tiled map editor, and also an 006. if keyboard.right: mt = doMove(player, 1, 0)
icon that we can use to show how many sticks of 007. if keyboard.up: mt = doMove(player, 0, -1)
dynamite the player has collected. If you want to 008. if keyboard.down: mt = doMove(player, 0, 1)
use ready-made graphics and map data, they are 009. if mt == 4:
available from the GitHub repo: magpi.cc/NvafjA. 010. mapData["data"][ player["y"] + player["queueY"]][
player["x"] + player["queueX"]] = 1
011. player["dynamite"] += 1
012. updateBall(player)
Handling the explosives 013. updateBall(enemy1)
16 First, let’s add a variable to hold the number 014. updateBall(enemy2)
of sticks of dynamite being held by the player, 015. updateEnemy(enemy1)
which can be done by writing "dynamite":0 as part 016. updateEnemy(enemy2)
of the player dictionary. Then, assuming that we

TUTORIAL
amazeballs3.py
> Language: Python
001. import pgzrun

002. import map3d
have added some dynamite to our map data (see
003. from random import randint
the previous part of this series for details on editing 004.
with Tiled), we need to detect if our player has 005. player = {"x":3, "y":3, "frame":0, "sx":0, "sy":96,
moved onto a dynamite block and, if so, add 1 to our 006. "moveX":0, "moveY":0, "queueX":0, "queueY":0,
dynamite count and make the dynamite block into 007. "moveDone":True, "movingNow":False,
a floor block, which will make it disappear from the "animCounter":0, "dynamite":0}
map. We can do this in our update() function. 008. enemy1 = {"x":13, "y":13, "frame":0, "sx":0, "sy":0,
009. "moveX":0, "moveY":0, "queueX":0, "queueY":0,
010. "moveDone":True, "movingNow":False,
"animCounter":0}
011. enemy2 = {"x":25, "y":25, "frame":0, "sx":0, "sy":0,
Stockpiling ammo
17 To handle the picking up, we just need to
012.
013.
"moveX":0, "moveY":0, "queueX":0, "queueY":0,
"moveDone":True, "movingNow":False,
test the value of mt after our keyboard checks. "animCounter":0}
See figure4.py to view the revised update() 014. OFFSETX = 368
function. When our player has picked up some 015. OFFSETY = 300
dynamite, we can display the number held with 016. timer = 0
icons, as we have done before (for example with 017. mazeSolved = False
lives), in the draw() function by writing for 018.
l in range(player["dynamite"]): screen. 019. mapData = map3d.loadmap("maps/map1.json")
020.
blit("dmicon", (650+(l*32),80)), which will
021. def draw(): # Pygame Zero draw function
draw our dynamite icons in the top right of the
022. screen.fill((0, 0, 0))
screen. So now we have the ammunition for our 023. drawMap()
player to blow a path through the blockages that 024. screen.blit('title', (0, 0))
the baddies have put in the way. 025. screen.draw.text("TIME: "+str(timer) , topleft=(20,
80), owidth=0.5, ocolor=(255,255,0), color=(255,0,0) ,
fontsize=60)
026. for l in range(player["dynamite"]): screen.blit(
Going off with a bang "dmicon", (650+(l*32),80))
18 All we have left to do now is to code a
027. if mazeSolved:
028. screen.draw.text("MAZE SOLVED in " + str(timer) + "
mechanism to set off the dynamite. We will
seconds!" , center=(400, 450), owidth=0.5, ocolor=(0,0,0),
do this with the Pygame Zero on_key_down()
color=(0,255,0) , fontsize=60)
function. We need to test if the SPACE bar has 029.
been pressed and, if so, clear a space around the 030.
player, making all the blocks into floor blocks. 031. def update(): # Pygame Zero update function
This can be done with a nested for loop. Have a 032. global player, timer
look at the full amazeballs3.py listing to see this 033. mt = 0
last bit of code. 034. if player["moveDone"] == True:
Now is the time to test how the game is set up, is 035. if keyboard.left: mt = doMove(player, -1, 0)
it too easy or too hard? Do you need more or fewer
036. if keyboard.right: mt = doMove(player, 1, 0)
037. if keyboard.up: mt = doMove(player, 0, -1)
enemies? You could try making a range of different
038. if keyboard.down: mt = doMove(player, 0, 1)
maps with other objects to collect.
039. if mt == 4:
040. mapData["data"][ player["y"] + player["queueY"]][
player["x"] + player["queueX"]] = 1
041. player["dynamite"] += 1
And finally
19 Well, sadly that’s all we have time for in
042.
043.
updateBall(player)
updateBall(enemy1)
this series. We hope you have learned a lot about 044. updateBall(enemy2)
Pygame Zero and writing games in Python. We 045. updateEnemy(enemy1)
must at this stage give a big shout out to the
046. updateEnemy(enemy2)
047.
creator of Pygame Zero, Daniel Pope: without his
048. def on_key_down(key):
excellent work, this series would not have existed.
049. if player["dynamite"] > 0 and key.name == "SPACE":
We hope you would agree that the Pygame Zero 050. player["dynamite"] -= 1
framework is an ideal starting place to learn game 051. for x in range(player["x"]-1, player["x"]+2):
coding on the Raspberry Pi.

TUTORIAL
DOWNLOAD
THE FULL CODE:
magpi.cc/ODgUCg
052. for y in range(player["y"]-1, player["y"]+2): 104.

053. mapData["data"][y][x] = 1 105. def updateEnemy(e):
054. 106. edirs = [[-1,0],[0,1],[1,0],[0,-1]]
055. def timerTick(): 107. if e["moveX"] == 0 and e["moveY"] == 0:
056. global timer 108. r = randint(0,3)
057. if not mazeSolved: 109. if doMove(e, edirs[r][0], edirs[r][1]) == 2:
058. timer += 1 110. moveBlock(e["x"]+edirs[r][0],e["y"]+
059. edirs[r][1],edirs[r][0],edirs[r][1])
060. def drawMap(): 111. e["sx"] = e["sy"] = 0
061. psx = OFFSETX 112. else:
062. psy = OFFSETY-32 113. if e["frame"] == 7 and e["movingNow"] == True:
063. mx = psx - player["sx"] 114. if e["sx"] == 12: e["sx"] -= 32
064. my = psy - player["sy"]+32 115. if e["sx"] == -12: e["sx"] += 32
065. 116. if e["sy"] == 6: e["sy"] -= 16
066. for x in range(player["x"]-12, player["x"]+16): 117. if e["sy"] == -6: e["sy"] += 16
067. for y in range(player["y"]-12, player["y"]+16): 118.
068. if onMap(x,y): 119. def moveBlock(mx,my,dx,dy):
069. b = mapData["data"][y][x] 120. if onMap(mx+dx,my+dy):
070. td = findData(mapData["tiles"], "id", b) 121. d = mapData["data"][my+dy][mx+dx]
071. block = td["image"] 122. if d == 1:
072. bheight = td["imageheight"]-34 123. mapData["data"][my+dy][mx+dx] =
073. bx = (x*32)-(y*32) + mx mapData["data"][my][mx]
074. by = (y*16)+(x*16) + my 124. mapData["data"][my][mx] = 1
075. if -32 <= bx < 800 and 100 <= by < 620: 125.
076. screen.blit(block, (bx, by - 126. def updateBall(p):
bheight)) 127. if p["movingNow"]:
077. if x == player["x"] and y == player["y"]: 128. if p["moveX"] == -1: moveP(p,-1,-0.5)
078. screen.blit("ball"+str(player[ 129. if p["moveX"] == 1: moveP(p,1,0.5)
"frame"]), (psx, psy)) 130. if p["moveY"] == -1: moveP(p,1,-0.5)
079. if x == enemy1["x"] and y == 131. if p["moveY"] == 1: moveP(p,-1,0.5)
enemy1["y"]: 132. p["animCounter"] += 1
080. screen.blit("eball"+str(enemy1[ 133. if p["animCounter"] == 4:
"frame"]), (bx + enemy1["sx"], (by-32)+enemy1["sy"])) 134. p["animCounter"] = 0
081. if x == enemy2["x"] and y == 135. p["frame"] += 1
enemy2["y"]: 136. if p["frame"] > 7:
082. screen.blit("eball"+str(enemy2[ 137. p["frame"] = 0
"frame"]), (bx + enemy2["sx"], (by-32)+enemy2["sy"])) 138. if p["frame"] == 4:
083. 139. if p["moveDone"] == False:
084. def findData(lst, key, value): 140. if p["queueX"] != 0 or p["queueY"] !=0:
085. for i, dic in enumerate(lst): 141. p.update({"moveX":p["queueX"],
086. if dic[key] == value: "moveY":p["queueY"], "queueX":0, "queueY":0,
087. return dic "movingNow": True})
088. return -1 142. else:
089. 143. p.update({"moveDone":True, "moveX":0,
090. def onMap(x,y): "moveY":0, "movingNow":False})
091. if 0 <= x < mapData["width"] and 0 <= y < 144.
mapData["height"]: 145. if p["frame"] == 7 and p["moveDone"] == False
092. return True and p["movingNow"] == True:
093. return False 146. p["x"] += p["moveX"]
094. 147. p["y"] += p["moveY"]
095. def doMove(p, x, y): 148. p["moveDone"] = True
096. global mazeSolved 149.
097. if onMap(p["x"]+x, p["y"]+y): 150. def moveP(p,x,y):
098. mt = mapData["data"][p["y"]+y][p["x"]+x] 151. p["sx"] += x
099. if mt == 1 or mt == 3 or mt == 4: 152. p["sy"] += y
100. p.update({"queueX":x, "queueY":y, 153.
"moveDone":False}) 154. clock.schedule_interval(timerTick, 1.0)
101. if mt == 3 and p == player: 155. pgzrun.go()
102. mazeSolved = True
103. return mt

TUTORIAL
Make comics
from TV recordings
Convert a recording from the Raspberry Pi TV HAT into a comic book
and read the latest Doctor Who episode on your Kindle
R
ead any good telly recently? How about under ‘Digital Video Recorder’ then ‘Finished
catching up on your favourites shows on Recordings’. From here you can download the
an e-ink reader or tablet? Sounds silly but file or you can find recordings in /var/lib/hts.
PJ
MAKER
it can be a nice, peaceful alternative to sit back Tvheadend records in the original broadcast
Evans
and flick through Holby City. OK, we’re reaching MPEG‑2 TS format (or ‘transport stream’).
PJ is a writer, a little bit. The real fun here is learning about
developer, and video and image manipulation, optical character
Milton Keynes
recognition, generating PDFs in code, and
Jam wrangler. He
Install dependencies
has terrible taste
in movies.
using Python as a powerful scripting language
to pull several tools together. We’ll take the
02 The process of converting a recording to
mrpjevans.com raw recording produced by the Raspberry Pi TV a PDF is going to take several discrete stages.
HAT and create a PDF document, complete with These include video extraction, optical character
captions taken from subtitles. recognition (OCR), and generating PDFs. Not all
of this is easily within Python’s reach, so we’ll
use Python to manage the process, delegating the
‘heavy lifting’ to some command-line utilities.
Get recording
01 Before starting, make sure you have your
Their purposes will become apparent as we go
through the tutorial. Here’s what you need to do at
Raspberry Pi set up with a TV HAT and Tvheadend the command-line:
installed (see ‘You’ll Need’ box for a helpful link).
The TV HAT connects You will need a recording from Tvheadend (it sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade
to a digital antenna,
giving your Raspberry doesn’t matter what, but maybe the news wouldn’t sudo apt install git python3-pip ffmpeg
Pi over-the-air be the most exciting choice). You can select any imagemagick
access to over 80 TV
channels and radio programme and record it, then find the recording pip3 install fpdf arrow
Compile and install ccextractor

03 The utility ‘ccextractor’ is able to remove
subtitles from DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting)
recordings. Unfortunately, this application is not
available in the APT repositories, so we’re going to
have to compile it ourselves. We’ll use Git, which
we installed in the previous step, to download the
source code from its repository. Then we’ll install
its dependencies (other programs it relies on)
before compiling and installing the app.
cd
git clone https://github.com/CCExtractor/
54 magpi.cc Make comics from TV recordings

TUTORIAL
DOWNLOAD
THE FULL CODE:
magpi.cc/swtRoH
Stills are extracted from the

source video file based on subtitle
times and scene changes
Subtitles are extracted, converted
to text, and then rendered in a
comic book-style font
ccextractor.git efore starting, make sure you have your

B
sudo apt install -y libglfw3-dev cmake
gcc libcurl4-gnutls-dev tesseract-ocr Raspberry Pi set up with a TV HAT and
tesseract-ocr-dev libleptonica-dev
cd ccextractor/linux Tvheadend installed
./build
sudo mv ./ccextractor /usr/local/bin/
stages. Make sure you know the path to your
recording. We’re using the public domain movie
Plan 9 From Outer Space, regarded as one of the
Install the script
04 As this is a series of steps potentially
worst films ever made. The first job is to extract
the subtitles from the video so we can process
involving hundreds if not thousands of files, we’ve them and use them as captions.
provided a Python script to control the process. It’s
a bit on the large side to type in manually, so again cd ~/comical
we’ll use Git. To get the code on to your Pi, enter python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts --extract
the following commands:
A folder, plan9.d, is created, containing a
cd PNG image file for each subtitle. An XML file,
git clone https://github.com/mrpjevans/ plan9.xml, contains the timing information for
comical.git each title. You’ll Need
> Raspberry Pi
You will now have a new directory, comical, TV HAT
containing the script and a few other files we need. magpi.cc/oBXuot
Cleaning up
06 So why are our subtitles images? It’s
> Tvheadend
installation
because that’s the European digital broadcast magpi.cc/QCkFdt
Extract the subtitles
05 Rather than just run the entire script,
standard. Subtitles in DVB are actually a second
video stream. To make use of them, we’ll need to
> e-book reader or
tablet
which wouldn’t show us much, let’s run it in take the PNGs that ccextractor created and perform
Make comics from TV recordings magpi.cc 55

TUTORIAL
use Python’s built-in XML parsing libraries. For

each timestamp, we then ask ffmpeg (a Swiss Army
knife for video processing) to extract a still image
as a JPEG and save it in (in our case) a new directory
called plan9_process. The file name represents
the time code at which it appears. We also copy
across the subtitle with a matching file name.
python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts --images
A picture worth
09 a thousand words
Strange name and optical character recognition on them. Currently Have a look in your equivalent of plan9_process.
strange interface, but
Tvheadend more than they’re too small to be recognised accurately by We’ve got everything we need to build our PDF.
makes up for that with the OCR application Tesseract. So, we’ll use the Right? Well, yes, provided there’s no break in
its seemingly
endless features ImageMagick utility ‘mogrify’ to resize them and dialogue, which seems unlikely. What about
greyscale them. scenes with no subtitles? Again, ffmpeg comes to
our rescue. An advanced filter can detect when a
python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts --clean significant amount of the screen changes, denoting
a scene change. Our script will ask ffmpeg to detect
If you have a look in the directory, you’ll see the every scene change and then extract further JPEG
subtitles are now large and monochrome. images, ignoring any that are within a second of a
subtitle image.
python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts

OCR With Tesseract --detectscenes
07 Tesseract is a remarkable utility originally python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts
developed by Hewlett-Packard and open-sourced. --extractscenes
Now you have it installed on your Pi, you can use
it for many other purposes. To convert something Your _process directory is now populated with the
into text, just run: additional images.
tesseract <image file> <output file>
Build it!
Our script reads in every image in the directory and
sends it to Tesseract for processing. At this size, you
10 The final part of the script will take all the
can expect a good level of accuracy from DVB titles. images and text files and convert them into a PDF
for you to enjoy.
python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts --ocr
Top Tip python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts -o plan9.
In the same directory you’ll now see a matching pdf --build
Not just DVB ‘.txt’ file for each graphic subtitle.
This part of the script uses the fpdf Python library
The script will to lay out each image in a 2×3 grid, adding pages
also work with as needed. Where there is a matching subtitle, it
other video
Extract images
formats that have 08 The next part of our script will extract a
is placed below the image. To give the final result
a bit more of a graphic novel feel, there is a comic
a supported video
subtitle track. single still image for each subtitle based on that book-style font included in the comical repository
subtitle’s timestamp. To get the timestamps, we which is used by fpdf when rendering text.
56 magpi.cc Make comics from TV recordings

TUTORIAL
T esseract is a remarkable 13 Make it your own

You could regard this project as a bit Top Tip
utility originally developed frivolous, but in the process of putting it together
Get arty
by Hewlett-Packard and we’ve looked at several cool technologies such
as video manipulation and optical character
Try using OpenCV
open-sourced recognition. Examine the script code to see how
we use Python to link all these different utilities
to give each
image a comic
together and marshal the data flowing between book look:
Adjusting fonts
11 You might find that sometimes, dependent
them. Why not see if you can improve on the
results? Some ideas include adding filters to
magpi.cc/RNVeoD
on the subtitle lengths, the captions can overflow; the images to give a graphic novel appearance,
or that the font size isn’t large enough, with watching the recordings folder to trigger automatic
too much white space. The script provides a few conversion, creating glitch art, or mashing up
arguments that can be specified on the command different recordings.
line to help with this:
This is an original
subtitle. Yes, the script
python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts -o plan9. is really that bad. It’s
pdf --build --fontsize 8 --lineheight 5 a PNG taken from the
subtitle video stream
--offset 68
Here, fontsize sets the size of the font. This

needs to be in step with lineheight, which sets We use ImageMagick’s
mogrify utility to
the vertical spacing between lines. offset sets the remove colour, invert
position of the first line of text below the image. The the image, and increase
size by 400% to
default settings are shown above. improve OCR accuracy.
Tesseract reads in the

image and produces
Automating and fine-tuning text output. As you can
12 The comical.py script comes with a number
see, it’s very accurate if
the source material
is clear
of arguments to control its behaviour. In the
tutorial we’ve gone step by step, but you could have
just run the following:
python3 comical.py -i plan9.ts -o plan9.

pdf --full
This performs every step in one operation. You can

also do a pre-build:

pdf --prebuild
This performs every step except building the PDF,

as you might want to remove unwanted images and
subtitles to crop the PDF to the things in which you
are interested. Delete the unwanted files from your
_process directory and then run:

pdf --build The final step is to produce a more fun caption for the panel by rendering it in a comic book font
Make comics from TV recordings magpi.cc 57

TUTORIAL
Build a
karaoke machine
With some clever software and a bit of equipment, you can
turn a Raspberry Pi into a fully featured karaoke system
K
araoke can be a party entertainment
highlight, a brilliant wet-weather kids’
activity, or a workout for your vocal
K.G.
MAKER
skills. There are two main karaoke packages that

Orphanides work well on the Pi. We’re going to focus on the
more accessible of these, PyKaraoke, as it’s light
K.G. is a writer,
developer and on resources and easy to get up and running.
sometime musician However, if you’d like a more polished interface,
who specialises
see ‘Get Professional with OpenKJ’ box (overleaf).
in getting strange
noises out of Pi Because the Pi doesn’t have a mic input, we’re
boards. A significant using a HiFiBerry DAC+ ADC HAT, which provides
amount of Danzig If you don’t want to collect your own tunes, you can always
a 3.5 mm stereo input with an optional pre-amp search for karaoke tracks on YouTube and sing along using a
was sung in the
course of this build.
circuit and dual RCA outputs that you can connect PulseAudio mic loopback
to a pair of powered speakers. To go with that, you’ll

@KGOrphanides
need a dynamic microphone, plus relevant cables to
Connect the DAC+ ADC HAT
connect your mic’s XLR or ¼-inch TRS plug down
to a 3.5 mm male plug, a decent pair of speakers, and
01 The HiFiBerry DAC+ ADC mounts on the
a big monitor, TV, or projector to display lyrics on. Pi’s GPIO. The daughterboard comes with a set of
We recommend starting this project with a fresh four optional plastic mounting spacers to keep
Raspbian install, fully updated and configured to both boards securely in place, although you’ll
You’ll Need
expand its file system and match your display’s want to leave these out if you plan on putting it
> HiFiBerry DAC+ ADC overscan requirements using sudo raspi-config. into one of HiFiBerry’s Universal Cases, due to
magpi.cc/dQKrSL space limitations. A specific DAC+ ADC case is due
out in the coming months.
> Dynamic
microphone (e.g.
Shure SM-58 or
QTX 173.853)
Configure mic input gain
> XLR or TRS to
3.5 mm adapter
02 The DAC+ ADC’s 3.5 mm stereo input is by
> Speakers with
default configured to accept line-level audio –
stereo RCA sound that’s already been amplified, such you’d
connectors get from the line out connectors on most audio
> Monitor, TV, or gear. To use a dynamic microphone with it, you’ll
projector via HDMI have to set the input gain using a jumper switch on
the J1 header. The jumper should cover the second
> MP3 + CGD karaoke
tracks pair of pins from the top of J1 to enable the DAC+
PyKaraoke provides a simple, searchable interface to find
and play your karaoke collection ADC’s optional 32 dB gain.
58 magpi.cc Build a karaoke machine

TUTORIAL
The HAT sits on top of your GPIO, using

GPIOs 2–3 for configuration and GPIOs
18–21 as an audio interface
yKaraoke is an efficient,
P
The DAC+ ADC has a stereo
reliable, and no-frills karaoke RCA output for speakers and
a 3.5 mm stereo input that
player in Raspbian’s default can be used to connect a
dynamic microphone
software repository
Update your kernel The HiFiBerry DAC+

03 Current versions of Raspbian Stretch, as of
ADC has a built-in
microphone pre-
amp, which you can
early 2019, don’t ship with kernel support for some set the gain on via a
of the DAC+ ADC’s features. Fortunately, HiFiBerry jumper switch (32dB
shown here)
has produced a customised kernel version 4.19.y to
replace Raspbian’s kernel 4.14 and correctly update
/boot/config.txt to load appropriate drivers for channels, and type alsaloop to confirm that your
the audio device. In a Terminal window, enter bash mic input can be picked up and fed to the speakers.
<(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/
hifiberry/dacadckernel/master/update-kernel)
to begin the process, which can take a while. If
Install PyKaraoke
you’re unsure of your current kernel version, check
by typing uname -a.
05 PyKaraoke is an efficient, reliable, and
no-frills karaoke player and, best of all, it’s in
Raspbian’s default software repository. Just sudo
apt install pykaraoke to install the program and
Connect and test your hardware
04 Plug your microphone, using whatever
all its dependencies. A shortcut for the PyKaraoke
GUI will be placed in your Sound & Video menu. Top Tip
adapters it needs, into the 3.5 mm port on the DAC+ For font support on MIDI karaoke files and in the
ADC and connect your speakers to its RCA ports. ultra-lightweight PyKaraoke Mini player, sudo apt Sound control
HiFiBerry’s upgrade tool disables the Pi’s on-board install ttf-dejavu.
Broadcom BCM2837 audio processor by default to For a handy
help avoid conflicts, so only the DAC+ ADC should graphic equaliser
application to
appear during these tests. Type aplay -l at the
control your audio
command line to list output devices, and arecord Set up your microphone loopback
-l to view inputs. Type speaker-test -c2 to run
06 Like many karaoke players, PyKaraoke
levels, sudo apt
install qasmixer.
a white noise test of your left and right speaker doesn’t have its own mic input handling, but
Build a karaoke machine magpi.cc 59

TUTORIAL
Top Tip
Dual audio
If you want to use
the Pi’s on-board
audio via an HDMI
link to a television
or AV receiver and
simultaneously
use the audio HAT
with a second pair
of speakers for the
mic, uncomment
dtparam=audio
=on in
/boot/config.txt.
A Pi 3 with DAC+ ADC HAT, connected to powered speakers, an XLR mic via a 3.5 mm
connector and XLR to TRS cable, HDMI monitor, mouse, and keyboard
because it relies on the PulseAudio subsystem, happy reading from a lyric sheet, make sure they
we’ll hit a device conflict if we try to use the ALSA come with a matching CDG on-screen lyric file.
loopback from our test. To avoid this, we can Commercial sites such as karaoke-version.com
create a loopback using PulseAudio instead. Open have limited free selections, and a number of
a Terminal and sudo apt install pulseaudio. musicians create karaoke backing tracks as
Now type pactl load-module module-loopback donorware, putting them online via file-sharing
latency_msec=1. Check to make sure all’s working services, social media groups, or by uploading them
as it should. Only run this command once per to YouTube for people to sing along with online or
session, or multiple mic loopbacks will be created. download using tools such as YouTube-downloader.
You can even find some on the Internet Archive.
Find some sweet tunes

Where to find 07 Copy in your karaoke files
free karaoke
backing tracks
Before you can hold your grand karaoke
night, you’ll need something to sing. You can
08 The best-performing and most consistent
buy backing tracks online, but unless you’re karaoke format to work with uses specially created
Specialist sites: MP3 backing files with a matching CDG graphical
magpi.cc/zikqUb lyrics file. PyKaraoke also supports formats
magpi.cc/zWYkfW
including MPEG videos, MIDI files with integrated
YouTube: lyrics, and MIDI-based KAR files. Create a Karaoke
magpi.cc/uHMQaC directory in your home folder to contain your
magpi.cc/frkEhY files – you might want to further separate these by
format, artist or alphabetically.
Internet Archive:
magpi.cc/mtztmt
Facebook:
Configure PyKaraoke
facebook.com/
bostonmetalkaraoke
09 Open PyKaraoke go to File > Add new songs
If you want to record your friends’ performances for posterity,
load up Audacity to capture the mic input as they sing to database. Add the Karaoke folder you created in
60 magpi.cc Build a karaoke machine

TUTORIAL
Get professional with OpenKJ

While PyKaraoke is more than sufficient qtcreator qtmultimedia5-
for singing along at home, if you want dev libqt5multimediawidgets5
to run a more polished karaoke night, libqt5multimedia5-plugins
OpenKJ has a better interface, playlist libqt5multimedia5 libqt5svg5-dev
queues for multiple singers, and a wide qt5-qmake
range of extra features.
It works, but sometimes pushes Install libtag:
OpenKJ provides a much more sophisticated interface, but the limits of the Raspberry Pi 3 B+’s
its high system load may result in performance issues in processor. If you’d like to give its
some files if you don’t overclock and cool your Pi
sudo apt install libtag1-dev
enhanced features a go, follow these libtag-extras1 libtag-extras-dev
instructions to compile and install it
the last step, click Scan Now and, when it’s done, from source. git clone https://github.com/
click Save and Close. There’s also a Configure Install audio dependencies: OpenKJ/OpenKJ.git/.
cd OpenKJ/OpenKJ
option in the File menu to tweak your other sudo apt install pulseaudio /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/
settings. Here, you can set the lyrics window to gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio qt5/bin/qmake
open at full-screen, set default sample rates, and gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0- make
choose an external video player to handle MPEG plugins-good gstreamer1.0-
and AVI karaoke videos. While you may wish to plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0- sudo apt install checkinstall
plugins-bad libgstreamer- sudo checkinstall
change the default settings later, you can safely
plugins-base1.0-dev
leave them alone to start with.
Checkinstall will by default install
Install QT5:
OpenKJ and create a .deb package that
sudo apt install qt5-default you can use in future.
Ready, set, sing!

10 With all your files added, you can just
type a word or letter into PyKaraoke’s search
bar to see everything that matches. Drag tracks
to the playlist frame on the right to queue them T he best karaoke format to work
up before hitting Start, or just click Play to play
them immediately. Your mic’s already live and with uses specially created MP3
ready to go, thanks to our PulseAudio loopback.
If you’re having trouble finding a song, click on backing files with a matching CDG
the Search View button and switch to Folder View,
where you can browse your entire file system for
graphical lyrics file
compatible files.
Loopback on load
karaoke
11 Finally, to save a bit of effort, let’s create
a Bash script to automatically set up our mic > Language: Bash
loopback and open PyKaraoke. Use a text editor
to create a new file called karaoke in your home 001. #!/bin/bash
directory. Our brief code box shows you how to 002.
format the commands. At the command line, 003. pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1
chmod u+x karaoke to make it executable, and use 004. pykaraoke
the Main Menu editor to add it to Sound & Video as
a new item for convenience. This brief script enables your mic loopback before launching the karaoke player
Build a karaoke machine magpi.cc 61

TUTORIAL
Pictures from space

via ham radio
Have you ever wanted to receive a radio signal from space?
It’s fun and a lot easier than you might think!
W
hat is Slow Scan TV (SSTV), then? You Firstly, switch the audio output to the 3.5 mm
convert a picture into sound (similar to headphone jack. This is needed for the way
Dave fax machine or dial-up modem noise) PulseAudio loops back the system audio as an
MAKER
Honess transmit the sound via radio, and convert the input device. On the Raspbian desktop, simply
received sound back into a picture at the other right-click the speaker icon in the menu bar and
Dave lives in end. The International Space Station (ISS) has choose Analog.
the Netherlands
a long history of transmitting SSTV pictures for Then, open a Terminal and install the required
and works at
the European global events, each lasting several days, where software for the project:
Space Research people the world over tune their radios to the ISS
and Technology
and try to receive the pictures every time it flies sudo apt-get update
Centre, where he
helps coordinate over their home. It’s a hobby of mine! sudo apt-get install rtl-sdr sox
the educational One such event is set to begin on 12 April 2019 pulseaudio qsstv ntpdate -y
operations for to celebrate the anniversary – to the day – of the
European crew on
the ISS.
launches of Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the first Next, set your time zone and pull the correct time
Space Shuttle, 20 years later, in 1981. from the internet. In the Raspbian main menu,
@dave_spice
go to Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration >
Localisation tab > Set Timezone, change Area and
Location accordingly, then click OK.
Install prerequisites
01 and set the time
Finally, go back to the Terminal window to pull
the time:
We presume you are running a clean install of
Raspbian Stretch Desktop edition and are online. sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org
Note that the desktop clock in the top right only

You’ll Need updates every minute.
> R
aspberry Pi 2B or
later
Install and test

> 3
.5 mm speakers or
headphones 02 the RTL-SDR dongle
> R
TL-SDR USB Insert the RTL-SDR dongle into your Pi and screw
dongle (search for in the antenna (it can sit on your desk at this
‘RTL2832U’) with a stage). Then verify the RTL-SDR is working with
good whip or dipole
the rtl_test program. In a Terminal window, enter:
antenna (or just
get this starter kit:
magpi.cc/uBMKQg) rtl_test
> T
ape measure, at
This is one of the clearest pictures your author has been able
least 1 metre If you see a ‘failed to open rtlsdr device’ error,
to receive with this setup. It was from an 83 degree elevation
pass near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, on 15 February 2019 remove the dongle, reinsert it, and try rtl_test
62 magpi.cc Pictures from space via ham radio

TUTORIAL
This inexpensive
USB dongle acts as
the radio receiver
It takes about two whole minutes for a picture to be decoded.

When they do this from the ISS, a picture is transmitted
continuously for about two minutes, with two minutes of
off‑time before the next picture starts
This is a good, but
cheap, antenna
again. Leave for about 30 seconds and look out for which can pick up
any messages about loss of samples. Press CTRL+C the ISS SSTV signal
when 30 seconds has elapsed. The loss of 100 bytes
or so is acceptable.
ISS is in range. Let’s just check the settings are all
03 Listen to a commercial correct. In the main menu, select Internet > QSSTV, Top Tip
FM radio station then select Options > Configuration and choose the
Let’s tune into a commercial FM radio station to following options in the Sound tab: Play with SSTV
check that both the dongle and the antenna are on mobile
working correctly. The command below pipes Audio Interface – PulseAudio
raw data from rtl_fm into ‘play’, which will then Input and Output Audio Device – default -- Playback/ For a quick test,
produce the audio output. Modify the value after recording through the PulseAudio sound server you can try these
free mobile
the -f to specify your own FM station/frequency Sound Input – From sound card
apps: Robot36 on
and don’t forget to put the capital M after the Sound Output – To sound card Android; CQ SSTV
number so it knows you mean megahertz and not on iOS. Play this
hertz (98.8MHz is BBC Radio 1 in the UK). In a Click OK. Next, run the Calibrate function and go MP3 (magpi.cc/
Terminal, enter: make a cup of tea/coffee: Options > Calibrate. Click ruANWC) and put
OK when both progress bars reach 99%. the phone near
the speaker.
rtl_fm -M wbfm -f 98.8M | play -r 32k -t
raw -e s -b 16 -c 1 -V1 -
Decode a picture from test audio

Note that the ‘Tuned to’ value in the output
doesn’t match. This is due to a property of all
05 Now that QSSTV is set up, we can download
SDR hardware, called ‘DC spike’, and can be a test audio file, play it, and see a picture slowly
ignored. Plug in your speakers/headphones and appear. In a Terminal, enter:
you should now be able to hear audio from the
commercial FM station. Move the antenna around wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/
or select a different FM radio station with a closer davidhoness/sstv_decoder/master/sstv_test.mp3
transmitter if the audio is noisy. Press CTRL+C to
quit from rtl_fm. Select the Receive tab in QSSTV and choose the
following settings:
Use VIS – on
Set up QSSTV
04 QSSTV is the program that will listen to
Auto Slant – on
Autosave – on
the audio output on the Raspberry Pi and decode Signals – Normal
the pictures from the fax/modem noise when the Mode – Auto
Pictures from space via ham radio magpi.cc 63

TUTORIAL
Click the play ► button. Nothing will happen, but Note that there is an SSTV event starting on
Top Tip just click it to start the receiver. 12 April 2019 celebrating the launches of Yuri
Open sstv_test.mp3 in the Chromium browser. Gagarin in 1961 and the first Space Shuttle, 20
RTL-SDR You can either drag and drop the file from File years later, in 1981. These events usually last for a
starter kit Manager, or enter file:///home/pi/sstv_test.mp3 few days at a time, meaning you will get multiple
into the address bar. ISS passes during which you can receive the
Your author Let it play and watch the picture appear in QSSTV. SSTV signal.
personally Notice the waveform and waterfall display activity on
recommends
the right of the screen. Other SSTV test recordings
this starter kit
that comes with can be found online, such as: magpi.cc/dXpjRr.
When is the ISS flying over me?
the USB dongle
and a good
07 There are many websites you can use
v-dipole antenna: for this, but your author’s personal favourite
magpi.cc/uBMKQg Prepare for the next SSTV event
06 To get pictures from the ISS you need to
is heavens-above.com.
Click ‘Unspecified’ in the top right to set your
know three things: location. Type your postal code and country into
‘Enter place to search for’ and click Search. Scroll
• When the ISS will be transmitting the SSTV down and click Update. You’ll now be back on the
signal. It’s not always-on. homepage; under Satellites, click ISS. For ‘Passes
• What frequency the SSTV signal will be to include’, select ‘all’.
transmitted on (usually 145.8MHz). The table now showing lists the times of the
• When the ISS will fly over your location. upcoming ISS passes for your location. The Alt
Imagine holding this
picture above your value under ‘Highest point’ is the maximum
head and aligning The ISS flies over most places a few times every elevation of the pass above the horizon; 90 would
it with the compass
directions. The line day (unless you live in the Arctic/Antarctic). You mean it goes directly overhead. Passes with higher
shows the flight path
can find out when the ISS is transmitting on this maximum elevation will give better results than
of the ISS across the
sky above you website: ariss-sstv.blogspot.com. lower ones. Clicking on any row in the table shows
the sky chart for that pass. Imagine holding that
picture above your head and aligning it with the
compass directions. The line shows the flight path
of the ISS and this is useful for roughly positioning
your antenna. It can also be useful to look at the
‘Ground track’ (see link in top right). Plan ahead
and set up your ground station with time to spare
before the ISS flies over.
Adjust your antenna

08 If you are using the RTL-SDR kit
antenna, please read the getting started guide for
it: magpi.cc/qzUKtZ.
It’s a good idea to adjust the length of the
telescopic arms based on this dipole calculator
(magpi.cc/uGNNxP) to match the antenna’s
resonant frequency to 145.8MHz. This will help
pick up weaker signals from low elevation passes.
Under Desired Frequency, enter 145.8. Under
Select Antenna Calculation, select One Side. Click
Calculate. The answer should be 48.9 cm.
Remember, there is about 2 cm of metal in each
side of the antenna base. So take 48.9 and, before
screwing in the arms, use a tape measure to make
them both this length minus 2 cm (excluding the

TUTORIAL
screw threads). It doesn’t have to be perfect, but

make it as close as possible.
Deploy your antenna

09 As a general rule, try to get your antenna
up as high as possible with a good view of the
sky in all directions. Outside is always better, but
you can still get the signal from inside a house –
you’ll just see more noise in the pictures. Then,
with the dipole arms flat, roughly align them
with the flight path of the ISS that you find on
heavens‑above.com and bend the two arms
upwards into a right-angle V-shape. You don’t
Start QSSTV The ARISS VHF
need to realign it for every pass, but it will yield
better results if you do.
12 In the Raspbian main menu, select Internet
antenna installed on
the bottom of the
Columbus module
Antennas and their performance are sometimes > QSSTV. Select the Receive tab in QSSTV and Credit: NASA/ESA
a bit of an art form as opposed to an exact science. choose the following settings:
Experiment with different configurations on Use VIS – on
different ISS passes. Try one arm horizontal and Auto Slant – on
one arm vertical, for instance. Autosave – on
Mode – Auto
Save if Complete (%) – 10
Set the correct time again

10 QSSTV saves the decoded images with a
Click the play ► button. The waveform and
waterfall display on the right should show noise
UTC time file name and this is useful later when coming from rtl_fm. Leave QSSTV running.
working out which ISS passes they are from. In a
Terminal, enter:
Antennas and their performance are
sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org
sometimes a bit of an art form as opposed
to an exact science
Tune into the ISS frequency
11 What is Doppler shift?
We’ll use rtl_fm again for this, but note that
the command is different to the commercial radio
13 A common example of Doppler shift is
station one. A commercial radio station uses wide the change of pitch heard when a police car or
band FM whereas the ISS SSTV transmission uses ambulance speeds past you. Compared to the
narrow band FM and so we have to set rtl_fm up emitted frequency of the siren, the frequency you Top Tip
differently. In a Terminal, enter: hear is higher during the approach, identical at the
instant of passing by, and lower during departure. Antennas to
rtl_fm -M fm -f 145.8M -s 48k | play -r The same thing happens with radio waves as with avoid
48k -t raw -e s -b 16 -c 1 -V1 – sound waves. The ISS is moving at 7 km per second!
Avoid the little
To compensate for this, ground stations must
30 cm mag-
You should be able to hear white noise now (don’t continually retune their receiver as the ISS mount antennas
forget the capital M for megahertz), but this will approaches (starting ~3.5kHz above 145.8MHz), that often come
change to the fax/modem noise when the ISS passes overhead (reaching 145.8MHz exactly), with these RTL-
flies over with the transmission active. Keep this and flies away (ending ~3.5kHz below 145.8MHz). SDR dongles.
window open. A picture is transmitted from the The good news is that QSSTV is clever and can You will have
little or no hope
ISS continuously for about two minutes, with compensate by tracking the centre frequency of the
of picking up the
another two minutes of off-time before the next audio signal as the ISS flies over. So you don’t need
ISS with them.
picture starts. to do anything!

TUTORIAL
doppler.py
> Language: Python
001. #!/usr/bin/python3
002. import urllib.request
003. import math
004. import socket
005. import ephem
006. import time
007. import sys
You can potentially get a certificate like this, even if you only
decode a few lines of one picture 008. import ssl
009.
010.
Compensate for 011. C = 300000000.0
14 Doppler shift (optional) 012. F0 = 145800000.0
It doesn’t make much difference, but if you want to 013.
have some fun with this, your author has created 014. LATITUDE = "52.219308"
a Python script to compensate for Doppler shift. 015. LONGITUDE = "4.419926"
It tracks the ISS using ephem, computes the 016. ALTITUDE = 20
corrected frequency for when the ISS is passing 017.
over, and retunes rtl_fm using a UDP socket: 018.
magpi.cc/zNtRDB. 019. class tle_reader(object):
To use it you’ll first need to run sudo pip3 020. """
install ephem and then just start the script 021. For keeping ephem two line element sets up to date
in another Terminal window. But first you will 022. """
need to modify the code to set your location. 023. def __init__(self,
See the LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, and ALTITUDE 024. tle_name="ISS (ZARYA)",
variables at the top. Get the values from the top 025. tle_file=
right of heavens‑above.com and just estimate "https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/stations.txt",
your altitude. 026. tle_max_age=3600):
027. self._tle_name = tle_name
028. self._tle_file = tle_file
029. self._tle_max_age = tle_max_age
Wait for the ISS to arrive 030. self._tle = None
15 You may want to leave your ground station 031. self.reload()
overnight or over the weekend to capture several 032.
passes. When you return, select the Gallery tab 033. def build_index(self, tle_lines):
in QSSTV to see what images were received. 034. index = {}
Alternatively, it’s always exciting to watch the 035. for i in range(0, len(tle_lines), 3):
pictures coming in live as the ISS is above you! 036. index[tle_lines[i].strip()] = (tle_lines[i +
1], tle_lines[i + 2])
037. return index
038.
Get an SSTV award! 039. def reload(self):
16 On your Raspberry Pi, the decoded pictures 040. print("Loading: %s" % self._tle_file)
can be found in /home/pi/qsstv/rx_sstv. You can 041.
upload them on this website for verification and 042. try:
recognition: magpi.cc/Kdjnmy. 043. ctx = ssl.create_default_context()
Check the information for the event on 044. ctx.check_hostname = False
ariss-sstv.blogspot.com to find out how to apply 045. ctx.verify_mode = ssl.CERT_NONE
for the award certificates. This will be a PNG file 046. with urllib.request.urlopen(self._tle_file,
that is emailed to you and will show a unique context=ctx) as response:
number. Good luck!

TUTORIAL
DOWNLOAD
THE FULL CODE:
magpi.cc/zNtRDB
047. tle_lines = response.read().decode( 092. self._s.send(cmd_bytes + param_bytes)

"utf-8").splitlines() 093.
048. index = self.build_index(tle_lines) 094. def __del__(self):
049. tle_data = index[self._tle_name] 095. self._s.close()
050. self._tle = ephem.readtle( 096.
self._tle_name, tle_data[0], tle_data[1]) 097.
051. except Exception as e: 098. rtl = rtl_fm_remote()
052. print(e) 099. iss = tle_reader(
053. tle_name="ISS (ZARYA)", tle_max_age=5520)
054. self._tle_age = time.time() 100.
055. 101. if iss.tle is None:
056. @property 102. sys.exit(0)
057. def tle(self): 103.
058. return self._tle 104. myloc = ephem.Observer()
059. 105. myloc.lon = LONGITUDE
060. @property 106. myloc.lat = LATITUDE
061. def tle_expired(self): 107. myloc.elevation = ALTITUDE
062. return time.time() - self._tle_age > 108.
self._tle_max_age 109. freq = F0
063. 110. running = True
064. 111.
065. class rtl_fm_remote(object): 112. try:
066. """ 113. while running:
067. For remote control of rtl_fm command line program 114. myloc.date = time.strftime(
068. """ '%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S', time.gmtime())
069. def __init__(self, 115. iss.tle.compute(myloc)
070. host="localhost", 116. alt = math.degrees(iss.tle.alt)
071. port=6020): 117.
072. self._host = host 118. if alt > 0: # iss is flying over location
073. self._port = port 119. new_freq = int(
074. self._s = socket.socket( F0 - iss.tle.range_velocity * F0 / C) # doppler
socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM) 120. if new_freq != freq:
075. self._s.connect((self._host, self._port)) 121. print(
076. new_freq, round(alt, 2), myloc.date)
077. def set_freq(self, freq): 122. rtl.set_freq(new_freq) # set new
078. self.send_cmd(0, freq) frequency in rtl_fm
079. 123. freq = new_freq
080. def set_mode(self, mode): 124. elif iss.tle_expired:
081. self.send_cmd(1, mode) 125. iss.reload() # we could be running for
082. days / weeks
083. def set_squelch(self, squelch): 126. else:
084. self.send_cmd(2, squelch) 127. time.sleep(10) # do nothing, wait for
085. iss to arrive
086. def set_gain(self, gain): 128. freq = F0
087. self.send_cmd(3, gain) 129. except KeyboardInterrupt:
088. 130. running = False
089. def send_cmd(self, cmd, param): 131.
090. cmd_bytes = (cmd).to_bytes(1, "little") 132. print("Bye")
091. param_bytes = (param).to_bytes(32, "little")

FEATURE
AMAZING
PROJECTS
Raspberry Pi and ham radio – a match made
in amateur heaven. By Rob Zwetsloot
I
f you’re a regular reader of The MagPi, you may
have noticed a survey in your email inbox a while
ago about the magazine. One of the questions
asked was about the kind of topics you’d like to see in
the magazine, and we got an overwhelming number of
requests to cover ham radio.
Ever since the Pi came out, the ham radio community
have been using it for fun and sometimes practical
projects, so it’s about time we let you know how your Pi
can do some fun stuff with ham.
68 magpi.cc
FEATURE
WHAT IS
HAM RADIO? Why ham?
In the early days of telegraphs,
people who weren’t so great
at using Morse code were often
Amateur radio has a long history. What referred to as ‘ham’ as an insult.
makes it different to regular radio? Think ham-fisted, or how an actor

‘hams it up’. Much like a lot of
old pejorative terms, it’s been
E
reclaimed by the amateur radio
ver since radio has been used to
community – and that’s
communicate, there have been amateur how we get to
radio enthusiasts. As radio became ham radio.
increasingly widespread in the early decades of
the 20th century, so too did amateur radio usage.
As the number of enthusiasts grew, so did the
chances for malicious amateur radio users, which
eventually resulted in laws around the world
limiting the frequency that these ‘ham radios’
could be operated under.
Over the years, the frequencies have changed,
and new registration and licensing rules have
come into place to make sure the amateur radio
community knows how to properly enjoy their
hobby without disrupting anything important.
Modern era A
lot of army
With the recent boom in smart devices, personnel had to
use ham radios to
microcomputers, and other hobby electronics, communicate with
the possibilities and accessibility of ham radio loved ones during
the mid-20th century
have only increased. Thanks to cheaper parts and
more power to play with, we’ve seen plenty of
Pi projects over the years that make use of ham
radio. Hopefully we’ll get to show you something
you’ve not seen before over the next few pages, or
give you inspiration for your own ham project.
P
ost Office engineers inspect radio equipment
in 1897. Credit: Cardiff Council Flat Holm Project
A
German amateur radio enthusiast takes to
the slopes with his ‘portable’ equipment
Amazing Ham Radio Projects magpi.cc 69

FEATURE
USING HAM RADIO

WITH RASPBERRY PI
What you need to get started using amateur
radio applications
WARNING!
A
You need a licence to
s the Raspberry Pi has been so popular operate amateur radio in most
with ham radio operators for so long, countries. There are a lot of
there’s a ton of software and resources rules and regulations you need to
follow, otherwise you may cause
readily available for folks who want to dabble
problems for others. To take a
with Pi-powered radio. As Raspbian is Linux- look at how to get a licence
based, it also means a lot of existing packages in the UK, head to the
have been ported to the Pi. Ofcom website here:
magpi.cc/SivDkd
What you need…
ANY RASPBERRY PI – The newer the better, but a
lot of applications will work on a Pi Zero as well as Basic usage
Raspberry Pi 3B+. Radio waves are one of the earliest used ways
of encoding signals. Much how fibre optic uses
RASPBIAN – Most of the relevant software will light patterns to transmit data, and copper wire
be compatible with Raspbian, so if you’re not uses electrical pulses for data, radio waves are
running it, it’s a good idea to prepare an SD card modulated in specific ways to hold data. The
that does. most common form is audio, and specific types of
A
Raspberry modulation (amplitude and frequency) are better
Pi 3 Model B+ is
recommended, AMATEUR RADIO LICENCE – It’s against the law for different purposes.
although a Pi Zero in most countries to operate a ham radio without In the context of using amateur radio with
can handle many
radio applications the relevant broadcast licences. Raspberry Pi, you use it to encode and decode
radio waves in the same way dedicated hardware
can. Using a full computer for this allows for more
flexibility in the way you read and send data – for
example, with the radio in your car you wouldn’t
be able to visualise aircraft patterns in the sky
above you.
Ham Pi benefits
The Raspberry Pi is a great computer to use
in conjunction with amateur radio due to its
hackability, low-power requirements, and
portability. You can easily read and even output
relevant data via GPIO pins with the correct
software, and carry around fully functional
devices that will last a fair old time on a portable
battery or similar.
Over the next few pages, we’ll show you some
of the things you can do with a Raspberry Pi and
ham radio.
70 magpi.cc
FEATURE
AMAZING HAM
RADIO PROJECTS
Not sure where to start? Take a look at these amazing guides!
ADS-B flight tracker

This is one of the more common ham radio
projects you see that interacts with Raspberry
Pi: turning your Pi into an ADS-B ground station
and allowing you to track flights. Similar tech is
used in high-altitude ballooning projects to track
where the balloon is.
It works on line-of-sight range and can have a
range of up to 300 miles. Using the radio data and
FlightAware’s PiAware software, you can then plot
aircraft near where you are.
magpi.cc/phwYXr
It’s great
for seeing if
a friend or loved
one’s plane is
delayed U
se PiAware to turn your Raspberry Pi into an
ADS-B ground station to track plane flights
within a radius of up to 300 miles

FEATURE
WSPR transmitter
WSPR (or ‘whisper’) beacons are quite
common on a Raspberry Pi, allowing ham
radio enthusiasts to create a network map
of where folks are, and the range of their
devices under specific frequencies and
such so that they can figure out how useful
those frequencies are. You can find the
map and other details at magpi.cc/uJnbUN.
WSPR stands for ‘weak signal
propagation reporter’, and makes use
of low-power transmission to make its
reports. There’s software that uses it which
is specifically made for the Raspberry Pi,
called WsprryPi, and it works a little bit
like the FM transmitter, requiring just an
aerial to perform its function.
magpi.cc/EjQpbd C
onnect a couple of your Pi’s GPIO pins, via a low-pass filter, to
an antenna and you too can be on the WSPR network map
THE NEW MAGAZINE FOR

COMPUTING AND DIGITAL
MAKING EDUCATORS
SUBSCRIBE
FREE
IN PRINT AND DIGITAL
FIND US ONLINE
helloworld.cc @HelloWorld_Edu fb.com/HelloWorldEduMag
72 magpi.cc
FEATURE
Also, don’t forget to check out how to receive

images from space using ham radio on p62!
Remote SDR scanner

Software-defined radio, or SDR, is where the SDR is where
computer decides how to decode a radio signal,
rather than any specific radio hardware attached
the computer
to it. This adds a layer of flexibility to receiving a
signal, and it’s something you can create with a
decides how to
Raspberry Pi. decode a
Although software-reliant, it does require the
use of specific receiver hardware in the form of an radio signal
RTL-SDR USB dongle to actually get the signals
to then be processed. SDR# (read SDR sharp) is a
popular piece of software for this, and the guide
goes through how to set it up on Pi.
magpi.cc/jawZRE

FEATURE
Digital voice hotspot

It’s Digital voice allows for the encoding and
decoding of ham radio voice transmissions.
able to Much in the same way that television went
relay digital from analogue to digital, this has the benefits

of improving the signal, while also using less
transmissions bandwidth at the same time. There are a few

specifications for this kind of usage, and this
across the project makes use of D-STAR to handle it.
You’ll again need specific hardware for
network this, and the jumper cable as an aerial trick
won’t work in this case. As well as working
for your own transmissions, it’s able to relay
digital transmissions across the network.
magpi.cc/VjYZcp
74 magpi.cc
FEATURE
Got an amazing ham radio project of

your own? Tweet us your photos! @TheMagPi
Satellite tracking
Think aircraft tracker but on a much grander
scale – using the software Gpredict, you can track
satellites. Up in space! That’s very cool. It also
includes great visualisation software that is highly
customisable. We’ve seen this kind of software
in the past being used to track the ISS – a good
way to make sure you’re out and ready if it passes
overhead during the night!
It’s also powerful enough to control antennas, if
you have movable ones hooked up. You’ll need to
compile it on Raspberry Pi, though, so it’s a much
more advanced project.
magpi.cc/BqPWLm
APRS IGate
By its very nature, some ham radio equipment
isn’t particularly powerful. Also, radio waves
degrade due to interference and physics and
such. What an Automatic Packet Reporting
System (APRS) digital repeater does is allow
packets from other radio operators to be digitally
repeated online (Internet Gateway or IGate), so
that they can travel much farther by then being
transmitted somewhere else. It’s also a good way
to track yourself and other local ham radio folk.
Again, the setup is incredibly similar to an
SDR, using the same dongle and software, albeit
with some tweaks in how the data is handled.
magpi.cc/yppPRB
W
ith a Raspberry Pi and an RTL-SDR dongle, you can set up
your own APRS IGate

REVIEW
Breakout Garden HAT

Pimoroni magpi.cc/AUCBrs £13 / $14
SPECS
BREAKOUT
SLOTS: With no soldering or wiring required, this offers an easier way
6 × 0.1” pitch,
five-pin edge to grow your projects. Phil King digs in
connectors
F
COMMUNICATION: or those digital makers who want to get
Shared I2C bus straight down to coding and creating,
EXTRA without having to first fiddle around with
CONNECTIVITY: soldering and/or complex wiring, the Breakout
20-pin breakout Garden HAT should prove a real boon. With the optional extender kit,
sensors can be placed away
strip Akin to other ‘connector’ systems, such as from the Raspberry Pi
Grove, it enables users to simply plug and play
with various tiny breakout boards: at the time of
writing, Pimoroni’s range is 13 strong, including
sensors, cute mini displays, and even a thermal
camera (see the collection at magpi.cc/TsRuUj).
Just insert one or more boards into the six slots
in the Breakout Garden HAT and you’re ready to go.
The mini breakouts feel secure enough in the edge-
An HAT-ful of
breakouts, including connector slots and are very unlikely to fall out,
the OLED showing although there is a bit of back/front wobble if you
the car reversing
sensor example touch them – particularly on the larger ones like
the OLED display.
Reverse polarity protection is provided in case

you accidentally insert a board the wrong way
round. Also, it doesn’t matter which slot you use
for each breakout, as the latter’s fixed I2C address
will be recognised by the software, so it’ll detect
them correctly even if you move them around.
And, since they use a shared I2C bus, this leaves
plenty of spare GPIO pins, the most useful of
which are broken out by a 20-pin strip of holes
– a male header is supplied, which, due to the
slightly offset alignment of the holes, fits firmly
into place (or you could solder it).
Plant the software

Installing the necessary software is also easy
enough. While, at the time of writing, the usual
Pimoroni one-line curl installer wasn’t working,
it’s easy enough to download and unzip the
Breakout Garden GitHub repo (magpi.cc/MvzTSO).
After inserting one or more breakouts into the HAT
76 magpi.cc Breakout Garden HAT

REVIEW
No soldering needed: just slot

your mini breakout boards into
any of the six slots on the HAT
The 5x5 RGB matrix and mono

OLED display breakouts
slots, you then just use a sudo ./install.sh

command to automagically install the required
J ust insert one or more boards into the
software for them. The one exception to this was
the 5×5 RGB matrix we tested, which required its
six slots in the Breakout Garden HAT and
library to be installed manually. you’re ready to go
The GitHub repo features several Python
examples to get you started. First, we tried out
the weather project using the BME680 sensor and want to reposition a distance sensor, or move a
showing the results – including temperature and
barometric pressure – on a neat 128×128 OLED
temperature sensor away from the Raspberry Pi for
a more accurate reading.
Verdict
mono display. Next, we used the LSM3030D 6DoF In this case, you could always solder pins
Providing
motion sensor with the OLED as a seismograph to (supplied along with right-angle headers) to the plug-and-play
detect ‘dino stomps’ – or, rather, us stamping on mini breakouts and connect them directly, or via a prototyping,
the floor! Another nice demo is using the laser- breadboard, to the Pi in a more permanent project. this stylish and
powered VL53L1X time of flight sensor as a mini car Alternatively, Pimoroni offers a Garden Extender practical HAT
reversing indicator, showing the distance to the Kit (magpi.cc/xFojdG) that enables you to extend is a great way
to get creative
nearest object on the OLED. We also adapted this the reach of your breakouts, so you could have
without getting
example to represent the distance with coloured them trailing like hanging baskets. Or, just using your hands dirty
squares on the 5×5 RGB matrix display. the Garden Extender parts and jumper cables, you with soldering
could use any other I2C breakout with the HAT. So and wiring.
9
Hanging baskets it’s very versatile.
While the HAT is great for prototyping software If you prefer a smaller form factor, a Pi Zero-size
/10
with mini breakouts, it’s not necessarily ideal for a Breakout Garden pHAT is also available, although it
final working project – for instance, you might well only has three slots.
Breakout Garden HAT magpi.cc 77

REVIEW
It doesn’t add much to

the width of the Pi Zero,
but it does make it a
little longer
Zero Dongle
8086.net magpi.cc/KHZHya £4 / $5
SPECS
USB PORTS: Turn your Pi Zero into a USB gadget with ease thanks
1 × USB A,
1 × USB micro
to this inexpensive add-on. Rob Zwetsloot gives it a try
MOUNTING:
O
2 × screws
ne incredible use of the Pi Zero that often
DIMENSIONS: gets overlooked is its ability to function
70×35 mm
as a USB gadget – you can connect it to a
computer’s USB port and have it act like a USB
plug-and-play device. This can be as simple as
having it power on, act as USB mass storage, or
even share your computer’s internet connection.
The trickiest part of setting up a Pi Zero gadget is
adding the necessary hardware to connect it. Male-
to-male micro USB to USB A cables aren’t very
common, and not particularly neat. This is where
Verdict something like the Zero Dongle comes in – slotting

neatly under a Pi Zero, it’s a solid piece of PCB
The thin bit of PCB is fairly sturdy
connecting a USB A male connector to a micro USB it does extend out a fair bit with the main USB A
A great and cheap
male connector. connector – but that’s unavoidable.
add-on for a Pi
Zero that allows The dongle does not automatically set up your
it to work really Dongle not dangle Pi as a gadget – there are no specific chips on it
well as a USB The Zero Dongle fastens onto a Pi Zero (any Pi that will do that – so you’ll have to make the usual
gadget device. Zero) using a couple of screws on the SD card end. modifications to your SD card. You also might have
9
It’s quite sturdy so you shouldn’t have to worry a little trouble finding a case that fits it.
about it snapping down the middle. There’s only Those are nitpicks, though – for the price and
/10
the smallest protrusion on the side, so it can slide intended function, it’s exactly what you’d need for
into the Pi Zero’s micro USB data port, although a USB gadget add-on.
78 magpi.cc Zero Dongle

THE OFFICIAL
Raspberry Pi
Beginner’s Guide
The only guide you
need to get started
with Raspberry Pi
Inside:
• Learn how to set up the Raspberry Pi,
install an operating system, and start using it
• Follow step-by-step guides to code your
own animations and games, using both the
Scratch and Python languages
• Create amazing projects by connecting
electronic components to the Pi’s GPIO pins
Plus much, much more!
£10 with FREE

worldwide delivery
Buy online: magpi.cc/BGbook

REVIEW
10 Best:
Raspberry
Pi HATs
The very best Hardware Attached Sense HAT
on Top for your Raspberry Pi Space-faring sensor
H
Used in the Astro Pi devices up on the International Space Station, this cool
ATs are incredible add-ons to the Raspberry Pi HAT has an 8×8 pixel display, environmental sensors, accelerometer, and a
that increase its functionality in a huge number little joystick. There’s loads of great Raspberry Pi resources that use it as well.
of ways – from added sensors and inputs for
£32 / $40
fun projects, to practical applications in business and magpi.cc/BsVbhG
enterprise. Here are some of the best…
GFX HAT PoE HAT

Power over Ethernet
Display and inputs
The Raspberry Pi is very popular in
We really like the GFX HAT – not only is it enterprise settings, and the PoE HAT
a very nice display that is easy to program allows for a more efficient way to
for, it also has a series of (capacitive touch) add Pi boards to a system. With PXE
buttons. It’s amazing for practical projects boot and power from the Ethernet
or basically any Pi that’s turned on a lot. port, you can do a lot with a 3B+.
£22 / $23 £18 / $20
magpi.cc/ZWvcLG magpi.cc/aqpwZc
Automation HAT
Automating everything
Want to connect your entire house
up to a Raspberry Pi? You’ll have
better luck with the Automation
HAT, which has just a ton of
connections that you can use.
And it all sits on top of a Pi!
£29 / $31
magpi.cc/fgMGmr
80 magpi.cc 10 Best Raspberry Pi HATs

REVIEW
Picade X HAT
Totally awesome video
games
Powering the almighty Picade is
this amazing control HAT that’s
purpose-built for Pi-powered
arcade machines. It includes
audio and inputs, along with
other bits and pieces, and it’s the
perfect heart for your arcade build.
£16 / $17
magpi.cc/BupAFF
Unicorn HAT HD
PaPiRus HAT High-def LEDs
The wonderful Unicorn HAT HD lets you create amazing
E-ink display
multicoloured visuals, perfect for a disco or project that needs a
You can make anything look 20% dot-matrix display aesthetic. It fits in a lot of Pi cases as well.
classier with an e-ink display.
Trust us, we’ve got the science £34 / $37
to back it up. It’s very low-power, magpi.cc/uitfMn
depending on usage, and looks
great even in bright sunlight.
£41 / $54
magpi.cc/ikcQsi TV HAT
Must-see TV
HiFiBerry Tune into digital TV in Europe with this excellent HAT which then
DAC+ DSP lets you stream the signal around your house. It’s the perfect
complement to a Kodi box, and it sits nicely on top of a Pi Zero.
Powerful audio amplifier £20

magpi.cc/ryviXi
This powerful DAC also includes a
DSP (digital signal processor) which
allows for full control of the way your
audio is output from the Pi. The folks
at HiFiBerry call it a ‘DAC on steroids’.
£60 / $78
magpi.cc/EsHtjE
Flick HAT
Gesture control
The Flick HAT can handle all
HAT DEFINITION
of your gesture control needs,
with 3D tracking that lets you Introduced in 2014 when the Raspberry Pi B+ was
control the Pi with some simple released, the HAT standard relies on the use of two
gestures even from a moderate dedicated GPIO pins on a 40-pin Raspberry Pi that
distance (about 15 cm away). allow for automatic configuration from the HAT so the
£20 / $26 Pi can use it. Learn more specifics here:
magpi.cc/vXZLzF magpi.cc/PAHaGk
10 Best Raspberry Pi HATs magpi.cc 81

RESOURCES
Everything you need to learn

The Command Line
Harness the power of the Raspberry Pi’s command-line
interface. PJ Evans gets typing
Conquer the Command Line

Richard Yes, we admit it, it’s a bit beginner, we start with how
AUTHOR
Smedley cheeky to start this section to ‘find’ the command line in text-only mode, and it’s not as
with our own publication, but Raspbian and gently up the pointless as you would think.
Price: it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t pace, covering file handling, Throughout the guide, hints
£3.99 (free download) feel we could recommend it! editing text, managing disks and tips grace the margins
magpi.cc/JrKoTA This newly revised book from and networks, until finally with shortcuts and technical
Richard Smedley adds four touching upon more advanced explanations that even made
new chapters to this already topics such as processes and this seasoned reviewer take
impressive guide. compiling software from source a few notes. This is a great
This course is tailored around code. A light-hearted final start for your command-line
the Raspberry Pi experience, chapter shows the fun side adventure, but not for those
where others take a more of the command line (there looking to deep-dive into
‘generic’ Linux approach. is one, honestly) where the shell scripting and other more
Squarely aimed at the absolute student browses the internet in advanced topics. Start here.
Websites
Great sites for online learning
CODECADEMY Command Line, this site acts as a
If you’re unsure about using great companion.
a ‘live’ prompt, Codecademy linuxcommand.org
offers an on-line course with an
interactive virtual terminal. TREEHOUSE
magpi.cc/VvTNvK A subscription site that provides
a wealth of training courses,
LINUXCOMMAND.ORG including our friend the command
If you’ve decided to tackle line. Free trial available.
William Shotts’s book, The Linux magpi.cc/AGHExX
82 magpi.cc Everything you need to learn The Command Line

RESOURCES
The Linux Command Line

William So, you’re serious about the famed not only for its power but
AUTHOR
Shotts command line. You want to be also its steep learning curve.
Community
a master; a guru. You picture The content is well
Price: people spending days climbing organised, almost academic in
£23.79 (free download)
a mountain just to meet you structure. This can look a little
magpi.cc/nvMNCo
and ask about that obscure tar intimidating, but the author’s Stuck? There are
parameter. Well, you’d better writing style is friendly and
plenty of helpful folk
get reading this book. accessible, avoiding arcane
The Linux Command Line, language. Especially impressive
out there.
now in its fifth edition, is as is the time taken to explain
close to a definitive guide as concepts and terms that others
you’re likely to get. This is a would (wrongly) assume the
real no-messing-about guide reader would understand.
to controlling Linux systems, Shotts, a firm believer in
Raspberry Pi’s Raspbian the open-source movement,
included. No stone is left has made the book available
unturned as we go from first as a free download under a RASPBERRY PI FORUMS
principles through to advanced Creative Commons licence, but We’re lucky to be part of a great
topics such as scripting, even at 500-plus pages, you may well community. No matter how
including a chapter on many prefer the paperback from No seemingly trivial a question,
experts’ favourite text editor vi, Starch Press. someone here will help.
rpf.io/forums
Command Line Kung Fu

Jason Cannon That innocent blinking cursor that can be performed to
AUTHOR
on the Terminal screen hides automate workflows. Jason STACK EXCHANGE

Price: all manner of powers. It’s only Cannon’s book is not a tutorial, Huge question and answer
£8.99 (free download) after some time and experience but instead a series of recipes site. In the unlikely event your
magpi.cc/GYQcBf at that little prompt that the to performing more advanced question isn’t already here, it’s
sheer scale of commands and work in the Terminal. Like a a very friendly place to ask.
capabilities dawns on you. stream of answers to difficult stackexchange.com/sites
Then, consider the thousands Stack Overflow questions (see
of applications that can be ‘Community’ box), Cannon
installed with APT. If you covers an eclectic range of
want to do something on the subjects, from downloading
command line, chances are webpages automatically to
someone has already written it advanced text manipulation.
and you can install it on your This is a reference guide
Raspberry Pi in seconds. rather than a course. It’s a no- UBUNTU FORUMS
Knowing the capabilities of nonsense read but provides Raspbian is based on Debian,
all these applications is beyond a ton of inspiration. A book as is Ubuntu. The Ubuntu
most people’s reach, and the that you can pick up, flick to a forums are a wealth of Pi-
same could be said for all the random page, and find yourself compatible information.
tricks and syntactic gymnastics saying ‘I never knew that’. ubuntuforums.org
Everything you need to learn The Command Line magpi.cc 83

INTERVIEW
Claire
Pollard
Maker, marketer, and more. We talk to Claire Pollard
about using Raspberry Pi devices all day as a job
> Category Maker > Day job Technical Marketing Manager

> Website modmypi.com / piborg.com
W
hen you’ve been and have spent the last seven at ModMyPi to work in the
around the Raspberry and a bit years working as a Pi community full-time. The
Pi community for a developer for a software company Raspberry Pi community has
while, there are a few faces that who make software for use always been a part of my life as
start to become familiar. If you’ve in computer-aided design and my fiancé Timothy owns PiBorg,
ever visited the PiBorg desk computer-aided engineering,” so I’ve always been to shows,
at a Raspberry Jam, or gotten Claire explains. “My job needs helped pack and assemble kits
involved in the online Raspberry a lot of different skills, from in the early days, and helped out
Pi community, you’ve likely technical understanding of where I can and really enjoyed
bumped into Claire. Recently, maths, to coding, to the ability the friendly, diverse, and
she’s become more active in the to explain my work at different supportive community. When
community, so we caught up with levels, from academic papers to the job came up at ModMyPi,
her to see what’s up. social media. I couldn’t resist diving in and
“I am a mathematician/ “Last year, I decided to leave getting to use the Pi all day,
computer scientist by training that job and took up a position every day!”
Claire is also the voice of
Formula Pi, the amazing robot
racing league set up by PiBorg.
Claire combined her love of

Raspberry Pi and BMX to create
this ride tracker
Wheeled robots line up for the

start of a Formula Pi race, with
Claire providing the commentary
84 magpi.cc Claire Pollard

INTERVIEW
As part of Claire’s work at ModMyPi, she gets

to have fun with lasers while building projects
Don’t steal this mince pie unless you really

want to be caught
When did you first learn about

the Raspberry Pi?
hen the job came up at ModMyPi, I
W
My Dad is a big Linux fan, and couldn’t resist diving in and getting to Claire’s
he heard about the Raspberry maker tips
Pi through one of the podcasts use the Pi all day, every day
he listens to. He used to pick “Don’t be afraid to
me up from work on his way event that it is from the initial I ride the track. I’m a British just jump in and
home before I got a car, and we Kickstarter we built a couple of Cycling coach and ride BMX at try something. Just
having a go, not
chatted about it on the drive years ago. I commentate on the our club, Royston Rockets. I used
expecting to be the
home. He seemed quite excited YouTube feeds, which again is to race at an international level,
best straight away and
at the prospect of a tiny Linux something completely different but have since semi-retired due not worrying about
board that was easy to use and from my day job, as working to injuries. making mistakes
relatively cheap. from home I don’t really get to I love combining my passions, is the best attitude
I think we missed getting one talk to many people. It’s like so this seemed like an interesting to have if you want
to get into making.
on release week, but Timothy got Formula Pi has become my little project where I got the
Some of the things
one on eBay a few weeks after playground to let off steam and opportunity to do just that. I’m
I’ve made in the past
launch, and the rest is history! talk relentlessly about racing and almost at the point where I’ve got have been awful, but
other rubbish for an hour or two a working prototype, so testing I’ve learnt so much
Do you have any favourite Pi each week. should happen soon. from the mistakes and
projects you’ve made or been The other project I’m enjoying Finally, the Christmas Mince the almost working
involved with? is building a Sense HAT-based Spy project (magpi.cc/aikrnL) I projects, it’s helped
me grow and become
I’ve really enjoyed helping with computer to go onto my BMX, completed was a lot of fun and I
more confident
Formula Pi (formulapi.com) and to measure g-forces and learnt about latch circuits whilst with making!”
seeing it grow into the chaotic accelerometer data from when I built it!
Claire Pollard magpi.cc 85

THIS MONTH IN RASPBERRY PI
This Month
in Raspberry Pi
#MonthOfMaking
The online maker community 01
has stepped up to the
#MonthOfMaking challenge
L
ast issue we announced #MonthOfMaking
– our month-long event where we want
the maker community to post their builds
to Twitter using the #MonthOfMaking hashtag.
We’ve seen loads of interpretations of what this
means; here are some of our faves.
01. Raspberry Pi community

manager Alex has been having
a lot of fun with the laser cutter
recently – this frame is one of
her many creations!
02. Hedgehogs are adorable, and
so are these nature pics of the
nocturnal creatures taken by a
Raspberry Pi
03.
Recycling tech with Pi is a
popular pastime, including
replacing an entry panel with 06. The Raspberry Pi North
an older screen America team got involved
during their Maker Day
04. Making robots is very cool,
especially when said robots 07. We very much believe that
win competitions baking cakes can count as
making, although we’d have to
05. Another of Alex’s laser-cut try one or two to make sure
creations is this wonderful
light‑up Pi logo 08. P
i-hole is very useful, especially 02
if you’re a cybernetic life-form
86 magpi.cc #MonthOfMaking
04
03
08 06
05
07
#MonthOfMaking magpi.cc 87
Big Birthday
Weekend 2019
The Raspberry Pi has turned seven, and people
around the world have been celebrating
M
arch isn’t just the #MonthOfMaking,
it’s also when the Raspberry Pi usually
gets its own birthday party! Like in 2018,
a global series of jams were organised to celebrate
the seventh year of Pi. Here’s some of the fun…
02
01
03
01. From Peru we have

this wonderful custom
laptop being shown off
02. R2-D2 decided to show
up to a birthday Jam
in Lebanon. Must have
been that lovely cake
03.
Students from across
California celebrated
the Raspberry Pi – a first
for the teachers and
students there!
04. Looks like this Raspberry
04 Jam photo-booth
needed a bit of testing
88 magpi.cc Big Birthday Weekend 2019

Crowdfund this! Raspberry Pi projects you

can crowdfund this month
CROWD
A PI PRFUNDING
Strawberry4Pi PiArm If you
irresis
’ve la
OJECT
unche
?
tible P d an
projec i-relate
t, let u d
We’ve never seen a project where the Pi just slots into A powerful DIY robotic arm from our friends at SB magp s know
i@ras !
a board before (the Compute Module doesn’t exactly Components, this one has a lot more articulation than the pberry
pi.org
count), and this one’s function is to give ultimate IoT MeArm. It’s also controllable from many more sources
access to a Pi Zero. It uses its own software, and all you (such as mobile phones as well as full automation), and
need to do is attach your automated appliances. both the hardware and software is open-source.
kck.st/2Svrqgm kck.st/2TCbUnG
Best of the rest! Here are some other great things we saw this month
NES CLOCK VOXEL RASPBERRY PI PSPI
We love this custom-designed clock This recreation of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ The PSP is a cult classic handheld and
inspired by the NES. The controller made out of voxels (think 3D pixels) is ever since it came out, people have been
isn’t there just for show, either – it runs great. And apparently anyone is welcome hacking and modding it. The next logical
RetroPie as well as being a clock. That’s to use it! Be a good sport, though, and step was to install a Pi Zero inside one and
the kind of alarm we can get behind. credit the creator, reddit user Cal_Macc. have it power the screen. A great idea.
magpi.cc/wkWiac magpi.cc/GQMgry magpi.cc/RhZZTB
Crowdfund this! magpi.cc 89

EVENTS
Raspberry Jam
03
Event Calendar
Find out what community-organised Raspberry Pi-themed
events are happening near you…
01. PiJam.cz 05. April Exeter Raspberry Jam

Monday 1 April Saturday 6 April
Impact Hub Praha D10, Prague, Czech Republic Exeter Library, Exeter, UK
pijam.cz magpi.cc/GvtEgf
One of three PiJam events running this week in the A monthly meeting for everyone interested in all things
Czech Republic; the others are in Brno and Ostrava. computers, microcontrollers, robotics, and making.
02. Komarovi-TSU Jam 06. Preston Raspberry Jam

Saturday 6 April Saturday 6 April
1, Chavchavadze Ave, Tbilisi, Georgia Fulwood Library, Preston, UK
magpi.cc/igbNVu magpi.cc/gbJPhd
This first Raspberry Jam in Georgia will introduce folks to A free digital making event for all ages and skill levels.
physical computing with the Pi. Beginners welcome. FULL CALENDAR
Get a full list of upcoming
03. Santiago Raspberry Jam 07. Cornwall Tech Jam events for April and
Friday 19 April Saturday 13 April beyond here:
Corniel Academy, Santiago, Dominican Republic Cornwall College, Redruth, UK rpf.io/jam
magpi.cc/wjvFqP cornwalltechjam.uk
We don’t see many Jams in the Caribbean, so it will be For anyone interested in technology, of all ages and
well worth attending this first one! abilities. Ask questions and learn about programming.
04. Raspjamming 08. Egham Raspberry Jam

Friday 26 April Sunday 28 April
Technischen Universität Graz, Graz, Austria Gartner UK HQ, Staines-upon-Thames, UK
magpi.cc/pvPMAL magpi.cc/KZaDWu
A place for people to meet to work on Pi projects – bring An opportunity to share what you have built, as well as
your own, or join in on the provided challenges. learn from others.
90 magpi.cc Raspberry Jam Event Calendar

EVENTS
01
04
02
FIND OUT
ABOUT JAMS
Want a Raspberry Jam
in your area?
Want to start one?
Email Ben Nuttall about it:
jam@raspberrypi.org
We’ve highlighted some of the areas

in need of a Jam! Can you help out?
Raspberry Jam advice:
Catering
“W
e’re not allowed food and drink inside
our venue. The event starts at
1pm, so we advise people to
eat before they arrive, and we point out some
06 local cafés.”
Andrew Oakley – Cotswold Jam
08
Every Raspberry Jam is entitled to apply for a
Jam starter kit, which includes magazine issues,
05
printed worksheets, stickers, flyers, and more.
07
Get the book here: magpi.cc/2q9DHfQ
Raspberry Jam Event Calendar magpi.cc 91

YOUR LETTERS
Your
Letters
Reprints
I have noticed that some of
your back issues are sold out
and have been for some time. I
was wondering if you have any
plans to print any more (I refer
specifically to issue 71).
Unfortunately I missed a copy
as it was published between
my subscriptions whilst I was
on holiday and unaware my he reprint of issue 40 was done
T
subscription had lapsed. under exceptional circumstances
Paul via email

Making Month
It is ultra-rare that any magazine
gets reprinted – we did a reprint What is this Month of Making call to post what you’re working
of issue 40 due to its popularity, all about? I keep seeing it on, with images, to Twitter!
but that was a very special case. over Twitter. Is it anything You can see some of the fun
You can get a free PDF of any back to do with Makers Hour or stuff people have made in This
issue on our website and print it Makevember? Month in Raspberry Pi on page
for your own personal use. Every 86, and we’ll hopefully have a
now and then we do find some old Robert via Twitter lot more to show off next month
print stock, so give it a periodic in the magazine! Of course, you
check to see if it’s shown up. Or If you managed to miss last can also make stuff in April or
check out eBay in case anyone has issue, we decided to launch a any other month of the year and
KonMari’d their collection. little event for the Raspberry post it to Twitter. However, we
Pi and wider maker community wanted everyone to get involved
called #MonthOfMaking. Just a this month!
Contact us!
M A K I N G
ONTHOF
> Twitter @TheMagPi
#M
> Facebook magpi.cc/facebook
> Email magpi@raspberrypi.org
> Online raspberrypi.org/forums Make whatever you
want in March!
92 magpi.cc Your Letters

YOUR LETTERS
Coral availability Dash button

I contacted Mouser (mouser.com) It looks like the Amazon Which is a touch frustrating!
about the Coral as it seems Dash button has been Anyway, as for replacements,
like France is one of the only discontinued, which is a big some folks have already been
countries where the latest Coral shame! I know a few tutorials making clones of the Dash
TPU from Google is not available you’ve done incorporate it, button with ESP8266 IoT boards,
for purchase. I had my hopes so I was wondering if you and we’d hazard a guess that
high with the latest The MagPi, knew of any alternatives to they’d generally be easier to use,
issue #79, and was wondering the Dash button for this kind even if they require a little more
why I couldn’t buy it! of… easily hackable, quick construction time. You can read
button-press device? up on these kind of clones here:
Pierre-yves via Twitter magpi.cc/igbPGq.
Dil via the forum
Goodbye, Dash buttons. We
It looks like there’s a restriction never really used you for your
in place currently for France, To give a little insight into intended purpose anyway
according to Mouser, but they what it’s like to write a print

seem confident this will change magazine: in the previous
and be available for purchase issue, we had recommended
there. Otherwise, you may have to the Dash button for use in
find a friend in a country that can #MonthOfMaking. The day
buy it to send one on to you. Or after the issue hit stores, the
take a quick trip on the Eurostar. discontinuation was announced.
OUT NOW IN PRINT
ESSENTIALS
ONLY £3.99 from
LEARN | CODE | MAKE store.rpipress.cc
From the makers of the GET THEM

official Raspberry Pi magazine
ESSENTIALS DIGITALLY:
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ISSUE #17
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COMPETITION
WIN One of Five

Keybow
mechanical
keyboards
for your Pi
We reviewed the Keybow in issue 79
(magpi.cc/79) and thought it was pretty
cool, especially in the way it looks.
“Keybow is a Raspberry Pi-powered

mini mechanical keyboard, with twelve
illuminated hot-swap keys, clear
In association with
keycaps, and awesome customisable
layouts and macros.”
We have five Keybows to give away.
Head here to enter: magpi.cc/win Learn more: magpi.cc/MytktH
Terms & Conditions

Competition opens on 27 March 2019 and closes on 25 April 2019. Prize is offered to participants worldwide aged 13 or over, except employees of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the
prize supplier, their families, or friends. Winners will be notified by email no more than 30 days after the competition closes. By entering the competition, the winner consents to any
publicity generated from the competition, in print and online. Participants agree to receive occasional newsletters from The MagPi magazine. We don’t like spam: participants’ details
will remain strictly confidential and won’t be shared with third parties. Prizes are non-negotiable and no cash alternative will be offered. Winners will be contacted by email to arrange
delivery. Any winners who have not responded 60 days after the initial email is sent will have their prize revoked. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by,
or associated with, Instagram or Facebook.
Competition magpi.cc 95
Join us as we lift the lid
on video games
Visit wfmag.cc to learn more

NEXT MONTH EDITORIAL
Editor
Lucy Hattersley
lucy@raspberrypi.org
Features Editor
Rob Zwetsloot
rob.zwetsloot@raspberrypi.org
Sub Editors
Phil King and Nicola King
DESIGN
criticalmedia.co.uk
Head of Design
Lee Allen
Designers
Sam Ribbits, Harriet Knight
BUILD A
Illustrator
Sam Alder
CONTRIBUTORS
C A R
Mike Cook, David Crookes,
PJ Evans, Dave Honess,
Nicola King, KG Orphanides,
Dan Powell, Mark Vanstone
PUBLISHING
Publishing Director
Russell Barnes
russell@raspberrypi.org
+44 (0)7904 766523
Director of Communications
COMPUTER
Liz Upton
CEO
Eben Upton
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Plus! DON’T MISS OUT!

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Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge,
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Hack party poppers magpi.cc/subscribe contributors accept no responsibility

in respect of any omissions or errors
relating to goods, products, or
Automate your garden services referred to or advertised
in the magazine. Except where
Using GPIO Zero 1.5 TWITTER @TheMagPi otherwise noted, content in this
magazine is licensed under a Creative
Learn artificial intelligence FACEBOOK fb.com/MagPiMagazine
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The 10 best laptop projects EMAIL magpi@raspberrypi.org (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).
ISSN: 2051-9982.
magpi.cc 97
THE FINAL WORD
Sound advice
How one audio artist ended up supporting Code Clubs. By Dan Powell
W
hen I was twelve, my audio and multimedia. I immediately have an amazing set of colleagues
parents bought me a ZX81 felt slightly intimidated by the phrase who are able to help with whatever
for Christmas. Those of ‘programming language’, I wondered music project I’m working on. Ben
you of a similar age may remember if I had the skills to code my own Nuttall, one of the Community
the restrictions of coding with 1kB of music? But my basic understanding Managers in Youth Partnerships,
RAM, although mostly I just copied of coding gave me the confidence to was very helpful when I was trying
lines of BASIC from the pages of dive in, and pretty soon I was writing to write some Python to pass control
Sinclair User, especially once I got my my own instruments, effects, and signals from a rotary potentiometer
16kB RAM pack. Friends and I would building some basic interfaces with to Pure Data, and I got stuck.
occasionally try to rewrite some of the the support of the Pd community. The RPF supports this by running
code, with varying degrees of success, a regular Maker Day for staff. Once a
and I once tried (unsuccessfully) to Code Club community month we get together to code, build,
learn Forth on the Acorn Electron As well as being a sound artist, I and make. Teams across the various
I had upgraded to. Once I had my work as a Programme Manager for offices, and remote workers, take part
Computer Science O-level, my the Raspberry Pi Foundation on either in person or via a Hangout.
computing education stopped. Code Club. In my role supporting the Sometimes I try out a project that
the content team are working on and
would like some feedback for. Lately
I have an amazing set of colleagues I’ve been trying to learn how to design
PCBs, and doing that at Maker Day
who are able to help means I have been able to get advice
from people with far more experience.
I ended up in the arts, but my basic Code Club regional team, my work My journey in digital making
understanding of coding meant I saw includes building and supporting the started 40 years ago. If my parents
a computer as a creative tool, and amazing community of Code Club hadn’t bought me that ZX81, and if
that gave me the confidence to use volunteers and the people who host I hadn’t had the support of family,
computers in my work as a sound the clubs. During my time at the RPF, friends, colleagues, and the maker
artist. One of the challenges for me I’ve met many Code Club volunteers community, I wouldn’t be writing
as an artist was finding a piece of and members of the Raspberry Pi this. So, thank you to everyone who’s
software which was flexible enough community who, like me, don’t have helped me along the way.
for me to improvise with in a live a lot of programming experience but
situation with other musicians. learnt just enough for it to be useful in
Dan Powell
AUTHOR
After trying Fruityloops, Ableton whatever they are doing in their daily
Live, and AudioMulch, I was talking lives. They now share that with young
Programme Manager, Code Club.
to a friend in the early 2000s, who people across the world at Code Clubs, Brighton-based sound artist, allotment
suggested I try Pure Data (Pd) CoderDojos, and Raspberry Jams. holder, and dad.
– magpi.cc/CDEFbX – a visual One of the great things for me @danielpowell
programming language for creating about working at the RPF is that I soundcloud.com/dan-powell
98 magpi.cc Sound advice

LEARN
COMPUTING
THE EASY WAY!
Includes
Pi Zero W computer
Official case with three covers
USB and HDMI adapters
8GB microSD card
116-page beginner’s book
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BUY IN PRINT WORLDWIDE MAGPI.

Issue 80 April 2019 magpi.cc The official Raspberry Pi magazine

TOP 10 Raspberry Pi HATs

Lucy Hattersley Editor

Underwater Drone A Whisper of Moths

38 Lego Boost – Pi Bakery

The Big Feature

Breakout Garden HAT

76 Breakout Garden HAT

84 Claire Pollard interview

GPIO Zero 1.5 launched

L ots of kits that previously took

06 magpi.cc GPIO Zero 1.5 launched

As well as the standard pin factories (RPi.GPIO,

sudo apt update

For a complete list of what’s new in GPIO Zero

Smart calendar built

08 magpi.cc Smart calendar built with Raspberry Pi

Use the code MP-SAVE at checkout

Autism-friendly Code Clubs magpi.cc 11

“The moths were made by local schoolchildren

Lunar new year

12 magpi.cc A Whisper of Moths

The main attraction is the

The Pi Zero helped

> A lot of the project

> The sounds have

> We’re currently in

> Macclesfield was

A Whisper of Moths magpi.cc 13

As visitors walk into the church, the PIR

A dragon dance led After following a Chinese dragon puppet and

14 magpi.cc A Whisper of Moths

Each butterfly was

The stained glass

 e realised that we could

“We used the first Raspberry Pi for the sound

A Whisper of Moths magpi.cc 15

The Raspberry Pi is placed in a case and tucked around the back.

that I should do something with it,” he says.

16 magpi.cc E-ink Calendar

As well as forecasting the

The widgets are rendered

An LED lights up when the

> Forecasts are

E-ink Calendar magpi.cc 17

Inspired by watching inventors on the Discovery

18 magpi.cc Underwater Drone

Wires leave the housing

> It operated best in

Underwater Drone magpi.cc 19

Mayorquin Self-confessed fitness-nuts Salma Mayorquin

The user can give voice

The smart mirror

> TensorFlow Lite

More intense exercise > Terry and Salma

training, and others have suggested dance and

22 magpi.cc The Raspberry Pi Clapper

A simple clap of the hands is

L ots of kits that previously took

> A lot of the project

> The sounds have

> We’re currently in

> Macclesfield was

A dragon dance led After following a Chinese dragon puppet and

Each butterfly was

The stained glass

e realised that we could

The Raspberry Pi is placed in a case and tucked around the back.

> Forecasts are

> It operated best in

> TensorFlow Lite

More intense exercise > Terry and Salma

> You can follow

> The PyAudio library

> You could trigger

> Ash’s other Pi

Activate Samba support in

Use testparm to test

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