Published in Dev Genius·May 28Raspberry Pi Powered Flying Geese ClockLEDs programmed with Python and controlled through MQTT bring this traditional quilt pattern to life — The clock consists of a quilt top mounted over a cardboard frame embedded with LEDs. The lights are connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero and shine through the fabric to indicate the hour, and bathe the wall in red to give a vague notion of minutes past. As well…Raspberry Pi6 min read
Published in Age of Awareness·Dec 16, 2021It’s not Christmas until your tree is topped with a glowing RhombicosidodecahedronI’ve slowly become obsessed with Snapology and now see origami spheres as the unnecessary solution to already solved problems. — I have seen how pleasing the throw of light can be from light sources placed inside Snapology origami, so when thoughts turned to Christmas decorations the idea of a Snapology tree topper seemed to almost float up from my subconscious.Raspberry Pi4 min read
Published in Age of Awareness·Sep 30, 2021My Colour Changing Icosahedron Quilt is my Coding PlaygroundThis quilted icosahedron is packed with 180 RGB LEDs and a pair of speakers, all controlled by a Raspberry Pi. I made it as a learning project and Python playground and as an experiment in light diffusion. A learning project After using Adafruit’s NeoPixel rings to create sun and moon wake-up lamps…Raspberry Pi6 min read
Published in Python in Plain English·Jun 12, 2021A Python Controlled Moon Phase Lamp Powered by Raspberry PiMy moon phase lamp is the follow-up to the sunrise lamp I created to convince our son that the day does not start at 5am. With this new model I wanted to make some improvements and break out of my coding comfort zone as I know I’ve picked up some…Python8 min read
Published in Python in Plain English·Apr 3, 2021A Raspberry Pi-powered Snapology Origami Sunrise Lamp, Night Light and Disco BallIt’s a fairly common problem for kids to wake up and not know what time it is and so sleep trainer clocks like the one pictured below are also fairly common. Stars during the night and then Mr. Sunshine appears at a set time. We were passed…Raspberry Pi10 min read
Mar 11, 2021The Jolly Postbot: Using Apps Script to notify teachers of letters sent homeAllan and Janet Ahlberg’s ‘The Jolly Postman’ is one of the most captivating books I can remember from my first years in primary school. It tells the tale of a bicycling postman who goes about a village delivering letters to fairy tale characters. With each turn of the page there…Google App Script4 min read
Published in Age of Awareness·Mar 8, 2021Building a Cardboard PlanetariumOne trip down a YouTube rabbit hole I stumbled across the ingenious Beals Science Cardboard Planetarium, a geodesic cardboard dome big enough to fit an entire secondary school classroom inside. I thought having a go at making my own scaled down version would be a perfect lockdown project. Geodesic Domes I…Cardboard4 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Mar 7, 2021Randomly choose the pupil you had in mind all alongI recently rediscovered my first adventure in pure JavaScript: a not-so-random random name chooser. Nothing beats the analogue method of picking names from a hat. Somehow though, having the computer make the choice adds an element of magic and authenticity in the eyes of the pupils. Years ago my first…Java Script5 min read
