You’ve probably heard about the Raspberry Pi, but might know very little about some of the cool things you can do with one. It’s primarily aimed at beginners as an easy way to learn about programming, but it’s taken the electronics community by storm and some of the ideas for how to use it are really creative. In this article, we present some of the best ways that you can put your Raspberry Pi to use.
The highly anticipated second generation Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi 2 was released in February. The new model has all the same features as the original Raspberry Pi but now comes with a 900 MHz quad-core ARM Cortext-A7 CPU and 1 GB of RAM. If you have managed to get your hands one you may be wondering what next? What cool things can you do with a Raspberry Pi? Well, we’ve searched the web and hand-picked our 15 favourite creative Raspberry Pi projects that you can start right away.
Beetbox
Scott Garner over at Scott Made This has used the Raspberry Pi to power a musical instrument that allows you to play musical beats by drumming on actual beets. Visit his website for full details on how to make your own.
LED Matrix
For the more technical minded, Josh Fuerst has provided a detailed tutorial on how to make a scrolling desktop LED matrix. This is a bit more complex than the other how-to guides in this article, but definitely still worth a look. Visit Josh’s website for more information.
Make Your Own Case
First things first you will want to get a case for your new Raspberry Pi. There are many cases available to buy, but why not save some money, be creative and make your own? E from the raspberry Pi forums has created the Punnet, a card case design that you can download and print out for free.
Play Retro Games
If you get nostalgic about the SNES or Mega Drive you can emulate these consoles with the RetroPie Project. The RetroPie Project has the overall goal of turning the Raspberry Pi into a dedicated retro-gaming console that supports the connection of gamepads using the RetroPie GPIO Adapter. Follow their guide on how to set it up and start gaming!
Create a Media Centre
The Raspberry Pi can become a cheap but powerful media centre. XBMC is the best-known media centre application for the Raspberry Pi and it is easy to set up. With XBMC you can organise all of your movies TV Shows and other media in an easy to use library. There is a great guide on Using XBMC on the Raspberry Pi on the official site.
Touch Screen Car Dashboard
You can create a car dashboard using a Raspberry Pi that is also powered using XBMC. You can play music, watch videos or browse through photos but concentrate on the road if you are driving! Go to Instructables for a step by step guide on how to make and install your touch screen car dashboard.
Automated Pet Feeder
David Bryan has come up with a great solution for feeding his cats while he is away. For less than $150 he created an automated pet feeder using the Raspberry Pi. Follow the code and instructions on his site to create your own.
Build a Supercomputer
Even with the new upgraded processor the Raspberry Pi isn’t the most powerful computer, but what if you combined Raspberry Pi’s together to build a supercomputer? This is what a team of Computational Engineers have done at The University of Southampton. Led by Professor Simon Cox, the team built the supercomputer using Lego for the racking and 64 Raspberry Pi’s. If you want to have a go yourself take a look at their guide on The University of Southampton website.
All In One Computer
Fed up of tangled wires when moving out of his office, Mike Davis decided to build his own all-in-one desktop computer with just one power cable using the Raspberry Pi. He explains the process and the parts used on his website.
Learn to Program
If you have always wanted to learn how to program, the Raspberry Pi is a great starting point. There are a number of programming languages that you can learn but a great starting point is Python which is one of the primary programming languages hosted on the Raspberry Pi. Alex Bradbury and Ben Everard have written a book on How to Learn Python with Raspberry Pi. You can find more information about it on the Raspberry Pi website.
Build a Virtual World With Minecraft Pi
Minecraft is a sandbox video game in which you dig and build different types of 3D blocks and has become a huge success. Last year Microsoft bought Minecraft from its original creators Mojang, a Swedish company, for $2.5 billion! The Raspberry Pi is perfect for kids as it is an inexpensive computer that is easy to set up and can easily run Minecraft. There is a whole section on the Raspberry Pi Learning Resources section dedicated to this topic.
Raspberry Pi Smartphone
Fancy sometime a bit more modern? Dave Hunt has used the Raspberry Pi to create his own smartphone, aptly named the PiPhone. Check out Dave’s website for detailed instructions on how you can make this yourself.
The Pipad
Michael Castor has created a 10” tablet powered by the Raspberry Pi. The tablet runs Raspbian Linux and XBMC for a great portable media player. He’s detailed the project on his website and provided instructions on how to build your own.
Run Whatsapp on Your Raspberry Pi
Whatsapp is a hugely popular messaging service that has over 600 million users and you can now get it on your Raspberry Pi. Although it’s not well known that you can actually run the app on your Raspberry Pi. Follow this step-by-step guide from Instructables to find out how to set it up.
Build a Raspberry Pi Powered Remote Controlled Car
When Ingmar Staple couldn’t find a toy he liked, he decided to create one himself. He’s used the Raspberry Pi to make a WIFI radio controlled car. You can find full instructions on how to follow along with this project on his website.
Raspberry Jolt – Nerf Gun Robot
Musical composer Jordan Balagot has put his creative skills to work by making a mobile, nerf dart firing robot. You can have a LOT of fun annoying friends and family with this little invention. It’s powered by the Raspberry Pi along with some other components. Jordan explains in detail on his blog how to make one so be sure to check it out.
Well those are our favourite Raspberry Pi projects. Do you have a Raspberry pi and have you come up with any innovative uses? Feel free to share in the comments below.
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