RAREblog

Kit contents with extras I just finished my book on the Pimoroni Explorer HAT, and I'm celebrating! I have treated myself to a Tiny 4WD Rover kit. It looks a lot of fun, and should be simple to assemble. The product page has a link to a great blog post from Emma Norling which has detailed build instructions. I'll be following that closely. I have already encountered one  minor gotcha . You need a few extras over and above the parts in the kit. Some of them are mentioned on the product page (battery, Pi zero W), but Emma found she needed spacers to mount the Explorer pHAT on the Pi zero W. I have suitable spacers in stock so I think I'll be OK. I also got a LIPO shim and a USB charger. Once I've completed the build I'll document it and provide a link on this blog. A nice bonus if you hurry!  Pimoroni are currently offering a free Pi Zero WH for customers spending more than £100 (excluding postage). The offer ends soon, but I managed to get my order in on time whic...

If you're thinking of experimenting with the Pimoroni Explorer HAT,  Explorer HAT tricks is a great place to start. It covers over a dozen simple projects, complete with Python code, and you won't need to do any soldering. If you're an experienced Pi user, you probably feel you don't need it, and that's fine. But if you're just starting out with Physical Computing, or new to the Explorer HAT, it's well worth a look, and there's a free sample available . The book is now over 80% complete. You get the book from Leanpub, which means that you get updates free whenever the book changes. The book was written for use with the Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro but Pimoroni are currently offering a great deal on their Electronics pHAT kit . The kit costs just £19.92 including a Raspberry Pi zero. ! I've ordered one to experiment with. I know a couple of the projects in the book will need to change, but almost all of them will work unmodified. I'll write up what ...

    I've drafted a couple more chapters for Explorer HAT tricks . They need editing but I will publish a new version of the book with the new chapters next week. If you've bought it you will get the updates free of course. The video shows one of the projects - a simulation of a Pelican Crossing. You can find out more about the book here .

Yesterday I talked about my plans for the Pimoroni Explorer HAT. I've started the GitHub repository for the code from Explorer Hat Tricks. That's the ebook I'm writing for users of the Explorer HAT, HAT Pro and pHAT. At present there are just a few examples and a single project, but I only started yesterday :) I'll post here and tweet ( @rareblog ) as more code becomes available. Leanpub  I'm developing the ebook on Leanpub , a publishing platform. Leanpub is good for authors and great for readers. Readers like it because they get a chance to see a sample free lifetime updates for every book in their library, paid-for or free a 45-day money-back guarantee, and DRM-free content in pdf, mobi and epub formats.   Try the code out You'll need a Raspberry Pi with 40-pin header (zero, 2, 3 or 4) running Raspbian Buster a Pimoroni Explorer HAT Pro . Most of the code will also work on the original HAT or pHAT, but some will need the Pro f...

Pimoroni Explorer Hat Pro I love the pirate crew at Pimoroni more than ever! Last week Pimoroni ran a series of competitions on twitter. The prizes were gift tokens and I was lucky enough to win one. My Pirate booty included an Explorer Hat Pro and a parts kit . I've been playing with them ever since. The Hat lets you protoype Raspberry Pi projects in minutes. You don't need to do any soldering and the Python library is quick to install, well written and commented and really easy to use. One good turn deserves another I suspect that beginners would welcome more  'how-to' guides, and I'm putting some together. I plan to publish open source code on GitHub, and to publish detailed instructions in a low-cost e-book. If you've got suggestions or ideas for content that you'd be happy for me to use,  let me know in a comment, or tweet your ideas to @rareblog on Twitter.