Visit to Exeter Pi Jam – April

I went up to the Exeter Pi jam today and took my old AIY voice kit with me, spent some time with Trevor trying to get this working.

We downloaded the image from the AIY Projects website. As my version of this was, we think from 2017, (or that was the date on the magazine I got with it) then we tried the two images that were released for that year.

We downloaded and wrote the image fine, but both kernel panicked when booted, so further investigation needed.

Other projects included a weather station and a cycle helmet equipped with two cameras and some neopixel strips.

Next Event

• Next Exeter Pi Jam, Exeter Library. Sat 3rd May 10am to 12

Tags

#Exeter,#Event,#RaspberryPi,#Projects,#Hacking,#Making

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Tinkerers Meeting – April 2025

The next meeting of the Tor bay Tinkerers group will be on Saturday 26th April 2025 at 9:30

We meet at:-

STEAM Cafe & Discovery Centre 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

Possible topics

TBC

• Dragster Race Car update
• Snap Electronics
• Controlling Cnc Machines with Arduino (TBC)
• Other projects

To give you an idea of what we have been up to, please see the write-up from March

If you would like to ask any questions, please see our Facebook page

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi
  • Raspberry Pi 5
    
  • Raspberry Pi 4
  • Raspberry Pi 3
• Humble Bundle – Embedded Intelligence

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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Tinkerers Meeting – March 2025 – Write Up pt 2

Another post with the videos from the meeting.

• Video 1 – Drag car
• Video 2 OA Robot
• Video 3 – Trains
• Video 4 Micro:bit car

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Tor bay Tinkerers group will be on Saturday 26th April 2025 at 9:30

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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Tinkerers Meeting – March 2025 – Write Up

Meeting held at STEAM Cafe & Discovery Centre 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

It was just myself and Helen again this month, but we were busy testing Helen's Robot Drag car, this can now go the distance in <2 seconds, which is the target time. It does seem to spin after slowing down.

The Obstacle avoiding (OA) robot now works, and now has two programs attached to it, one is the OA mode, and the other it is programmed to moved around as if dancing.

The code is now on my laptop, so can be uploaded as needed, depending on what is required.

We also had a look at the Micro:bit car that belongs to Lucy M, this again works, beeps, the LEDs are a little bright, which is great in the dark.

I also had a look at the Snap Electronics kit and built up a few basic circuits including a transistor Amp.

A basic LED with switch

Transistor (NPN) amplifier with LED off

Transistor (NPN) amplifier with LED On

Transistor (NPN) amplifier with instructions.

The STEAM discovery centre also has a nice train set. This is Thomas the tank engine themed, but has track, points to change tracks and carriages for the trains.

If you would like to ask any questions, please see our Facebook page

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making)

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi

If you would like to ask any questions, please message Helen via our Facebook page

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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Tinkerers Meeting – March 2025

The next meeting of the Tor bay Tinkerers group will be on Saturday 29th March 2025 at 9:30. Just reposting this as a reminder.

We meet at:-

STEAM Cafe & Discovery Centre 13 Torbay Road, Paignton.

Possible topics

• Dragster Race Car update
• Testing IR robot car – This should now be fixed
• Micro:bit projects

To give you an idea of what we have been up to, please see the write-up from Feb 2025

If you would like to ask any questions, please see our Facebook page

Links

• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi

Tags

#Torbay,#Tinkerers,#Electronics,#Hacking,#Arduino, #RaspberryPi,#Making

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OS-Sci hackathon 2024

A quick reminder about this

21-22 Feb 2024

Groups of international students can participate one or both days. The event will be coordinated by OS-SCi in conjunction with foss partners and universities. During the event there will be live Masterclasses, which are streamed. Each day there's a prize of 2000 euros for the best team result.

You can register by pressing the Register button. Please fill in the name field, not only your name, but also the name of your team with postal code. Next we need your email adress. 

• Tickets *

Registration ends : 2/15/25, 12:32 PM (Europe/Amsterdam)

Links

• OSI-sci
  • Mastodon

Tags

#Hacking,#Hackathon,#Programming,#Science

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CyberSec Hacking courses

Just reposting this, you may need to request info on when the next set of courses start.

One of the advantages of being on the Fediverse is you interact with a really wide group of people. You also get to find out about interesting things going on. With Cybersecurity being a really hot topic at present with a real demand for skills, then Black Hat Spring Trainings 2024 | Registration may be of interest. This course will take place in the USA, but you only have until early January 2024 to sign up.

Thanks to Black Hat Events for posting this.

Closer to home and if you can't make the above then the course offered via EdX may be of interest IBM: Cybersecurity Basics | edX

There is also a course at the University of Birmingham * University of Birmingham: Applied Cyber Security Boot Camp

I have posted a list of other courses offered by EdX in collaboration with the Linux Foundation in an earlier post.

• Infosec Exchange Mastodon
• Edx cyber security bootcamp(s)

Tags

#Education,#Courses,#CyberSec,#Hacking,#EdX

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Code Club Electronics 12

So the next project is to try and link the potentiometer value to a buzzer tone.

So, using some tutorial code for the buzzer here. I have tried to modify to change the tone of the buzzer depending on the value from the potentiometer.

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board

float floatMap(float x, float in_min, float in_max, float out_min, float out_max) {
  return (x - in_min) * (out_max - out_min) / (in_max - in_min) + out_min;
}
const int buzzer = 5;


void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
  pinMode(buzzer, OUTPUT);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  // read the input on analog pin A0:
  int analogValue = analogRead(A0);
  // Rescale to potentiometer's voltage (from 0V to 5V):
  float voltage = floatMap(analogValue, 0, 1023, 0, 5);
  tone(buzzer, 1000);   // 1khz tone to buzzer
  delay(analogValue);                       // wait for time period linked to pot input value
  tone(buzzer, 1000);    // 1khz tone to buzzer

  //https://www.instructables.com/How-to-use-a-Buzzer-Arduino-Tutorial/
}

What I have now is a little buggy, If I bind the actual pot value between 0 and 1023, anything below 20hz is inaudible, so that the frequency is within the human hearing range (20hz – 20khz)

Not quite sure what is going to work, sharing this as work in progress.

Links

• Easy module shield

Tags

#Electronics,#Code,#Arduino,#Hacking.#TempSensor

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Code Club Electronics 11

I am now combining a LED blink routine, with reading the potentiometer value input.

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board

float floatMap(float x, float in_min, float in_max, float out_min, float out_max) {
  return (x - in_min) * (out_max - out_min) / (in_max - in_min) + out_min;
}


void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
  pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}


  

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  // read the input on analog pin A0:
  int analogValue = analogRead(A0);
  // Rescale to potentiometer's voltage (from 0V to 5V):
  float voltage = floatMap(analogValue, 0, 1023, 0, 5);
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
  delay(analogValue);                       // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  delay(analogValue);                       // wait for a second
}

Video

Video illustrates how rotation of the potentiometer is reflected in the LED blink delay.

Links

• Easy module shield

Tags

#Electronics,#Code,#Arduino,#Hacking.#TempSensor

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