Raspberry Pi: A Slice For Education
Raspberry Pi: A Slice For Education
Who Am I ?
My Name is Kris Findlay. Also known in the community as Azmodie.
I have been using the Open Source Linux operating system for over 10 years.
IT Manager for Animation Company
(makers of oscar nominated The Illusionist 2010)
I am also the Webmaster for The Software Society and The UK Adhesions Society
(Charity) which are both implemented, hosted and developed with open source
software. ( currently Django, apache, nginx, mysql )
Email address : [email protected] or [email protected]
Identi.ca/Twitter : azmodie
Google Plus : http://gplus.to/azmodie
LinkedIn : Kris Findlay
Agenda
A Little history
A Little history
The Raspberry Pi was created by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to
inspire a new generation of children to become programmers.
Foundation trustee Eben Upton, a lecturer at Cambridge at the time,
saw that the skillset of applicants to CS courses had been steadily
decreasing for a number of years. This is mostly due to the way that
education has been geared more towards using office applications and
less on understanding the hardware.
The Debian images available have lots of tools for both kids and adults
alike. so almost any age 4-50+ can enjoy learning about programming
and electronics.
Diagram of Model B
Development Options
Python (Quick2wire),C(WiringPi), Bash, Basic, etc..
Scratch
Geared to students and non-developers
Various Other Linux environments including
Aros (Linux based port), Arch, Debian, Gentoo etc..
Many open-source libraries being ported to arm.
Cross-compiler tool-chains available.
(both soft and hard float)
Scratch
The MIT program Scratch is designed to provide an accessible way for
kids to learn about coding.
The program's interface makes it easy to build and change software by
dragging and dropping commands and changing variable values
through simple menus.
The version installed on the Pi comes loaded with a simple car-racing
game. Users can add and remove commands from the game, then
press play and immediately see the effect of those changes - for
instance, tweaking how cars handle or adjusting the animation for car
crashes.
Scratch Example
http://quick2wire.com/
https://github.com/quick2wire/quick2wire-python-api
https://github.com/quick2wire/quick2wire-gpio-admin
My Raspberry Pi Demo
My demo focuses on input and output from python script through the gpio pins to
some simple electronics components.
This simple demo takes input from a switch
which illuminates a red led to confirm it was
pressed.
using the quick2wire api for python.
when the switch is pressed a counter is
increased by 1 until it reaches 16 at which
point it will reset counter to 0.
the corospoding value of counter at any one
time is then convirted to binary value and
displayed on the 4 green and yellow leds.
eg. counter = 3 bin outpit = 0011 led pin = 0011
My Raspberry Pi Demo
My Raspberry Pi Demo
#!/usr/bin/python3
import time
import string
from quick2wire.gpio import Pin
# import pins for output
out_pin1 = Pin(11, Pin.Out)
out_pin2 = Pin(13, Pin.Out)
out_pin3 = Pin(15, Pin.Out)
out_pin4 = Pin(16, Pin.Out)
rpi-count.py @ https://github.com/azmodie/rpi-scripts
expEYESProject
The expEYES (experiments for Young Engineers and Scientists) aims to
provide a low cost platform for experimentation and education in electronics and
physics.
The device has 12 bit Analog I/O, Digital I/O,
time interval measurements, & other features
accessible from Python. It is packaged with a
number of accessories & software which can
be used to perform a large number of
experiments.
For example, the device can be used to study
electromagnetic induction, the conductivity of
water, to measure gravity by time of flight,
alongside many other applications. It aims to
enable anybody to develop new experiments.
http://expeyes.in/articles/54/expeyes-meets-raspberry-pi