Potton Pi & Pints – 14th June

A slightly smaller, geekier affair this time, held at The Rising Sun pub in Potton.

Having first of all retrieved the equipment from Tim’s garage, we arrived around 1.30pm, moved a few tables around and set-up 5 Pi workstations in the upper room of the pub. People began to arrive shortly after and grabbed their tables to set-up their projects. Pretty soon, the beer was flowing and more people arrived to share in the Pi-ness.  Speaking for myself, it was especially nice to see Peter Onion. Peter used to run the Milton Keynes Raspberry Jam at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park and without him I wouldn’t have been inspired to run the first CamJam back in May last year. He also taught me everything I know about how to solder properly! (No more trying to apply the solder to the tip and then wiping it onto the component for me!)

Projects we had on display were:

• A Pi playing live high-definition TV via a USB dongle.
• The Hap-Pi Kits – cardboard cases for the Pi and to make robots out of. They’re currently running a Kickstarter here.
• Ken’s Pi Presents software – used for digital signage.
• LEGO-built cases round a Pi running node.js and various mini-apps to make using the Pi’s functions a bit easier.
• Version 2 of Sonic Pi (thanks to Jamie at The Pi Hut for the loan of his speaker!)
• An ultrasonic distance sensor driven musical instrument (which changes pitch depending on the distance your hand is from the sensor)
• A laser-cut robot chassis with lots of small bits that could be put together to make a full robot.
• Peter’s absolutely brilliant radio wave visualisation project. He used a ham radio plugged into the Pi which then rendered, via the GPU, the signals from the airwaves. You could see morse code being sent in real-time. He picked up signals from all over Europe during the time I watched. Great stuff.

Here’s a few photos, courtesy of Peter O:

We finished up the day with a lovely meal together. Great food, great company!