May 9th Meeting - Raspberry Pi Themed

[Peter J. Farrell]

Hey Pymntosians!

Our next meeting on May 9th will be themed around Python and the
Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized single-board
computer running an ARM processor with 512MB of RAM. Most people run an
ARM compatible Debian or Arch Linux operating system on it. The
"original" purpose of the RPi was to promote the teaching of basic
computer science in schools and the RPi Foundation selected Python as
the main computing language for that. However, enthusiasts,
programmers, etc. have found the the Pi to be a great device for
building purpose build software and/or hardware "things."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

One presenter has already stepped forward -- Louis Goessling to present
on "Serpint - Controlling Raspberry Pi GPIO with a Serial Port/Socket".
He also presented this topic at PyCon 2013.

https://github.com/602p/serpint

Louis was at our last meeting (April) and asked extremely smart
questions from the presenters. He was however probably the youngest
person in the room and could probably give most us a run for the money.
Louis volunteered to present in mere seconds and so can you ;-) So find
any Raspbians you may know and invite them to present at the next meeting.

Best,
.pjf

--
Peter J. Farrell
Principal Technologist - Maestro Publishing, LLC
http://blog.maestropublishing.com
Identi.ca / Twitter: @maestrofjp

Please do not send me Microsoft Office/Apple iWork documents. Send OpenDocument instead! http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/

[Nick Bauman]

Yes, Louis is an impressive dude!

I also have a Raspberry Pi project I've been hacking at called sharauprint.

https://github.com/nickbauman/sharauprint

It makes a raspberry pi into an airprint server and a print job queue server with python. This way you can print to a stupid printer connected to the pi from your phone or any other device without a driver over wifi. I'm in the process of adding sane-net support so you can do the same with a scanner connected to the pi. It works right now, but creating the installer for sane-net for arbitrary scanners is a little tough right now because it requires vendor firmware for the scanners to work correctly and there is no programmatic mapping for that today. I may have to devise this.

My sense is that the rpi is a great platform for home IT projects. I'd like to use it for everything around the house from unattended backups to printing, faxing, scanning, home security, ambient data or even the host / master / collector for a home wireless sensor network. (An open version of SmartThings, anyone?)

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[Peter J. Farrell]

Nick Bauman said the following on 04/13/2013 10:46 PM:

Yes, Louis is an impressive dude!

Ditto!

I also have a Raspberry Pi project I've been hacking at called sharauprint.

https://github.com/nickbauman/sharauprint

So without asking -- I'm putting you on the schedule Nick. ;-)  Let me know if that's not ok.

I can present on using a RPi for temperature sensing (think basement -- furnace broken) using Cosm for graphing and reporting.  I am in the process of getting the parts together and should have it done by the May meeting.  For now, I'll call it Tempi

So May is shaping up:

• Serpint - Louis Goessling
• Sharauprint - Nick Bauman
• Tempi - Peter Farrell

I'd like to see two more lightning talks if possible for May.

Until next time,
.pjf

[Nick Bauman]

Excellent. I'll try and have sane-net support baked in by then, too.

--

[David Fawcett]

The only thing that I am doing with my Pi right now is the same exact thing that Peter just described.  Temp sensor>Pi>COSM  Probably about 8 lines of Python.  I was going to roll my own graphs with d3.js, but ran out of time and just pushed the data to COSM.  (So, there goes my topic.)

I like Nick's ideas about the cheap SmartThings implementation.  I am imagining a garage monitor with temp, motion, and the camera module when it comes out.  Maybe on a model A Pi.

I am also thinking about building out some portable sailboat instrumentation.  I have a little boat on one of the city lakes.  I would love to have a Pi interfaced with an anemometer and wind vane on top of the mast.  Add a GPS module for VMG and maybe an eInk screen for display.  Possibly all in a Pelican Box waterproof enclosure. 

I was also thinking that if I can get wifi from the City of Minneapolis network at my mooring buoy, I could put together a cheap boat monitor with the camera, motion sensor, temp, humidity, and maybe something to measure how much water is in the bilge. 

Lots of ideas, not a lot of time. 

David.

--

[Peter J. Farrell]

David Fawcett said the following on 04/14/2013 11:57 AM:

The only thing that I am doing with my Pi right now is the same exact thing that Peter just described.  Temp sensor>Pi>COSM  Probably about 8 lines of Python.  I was going to roll my own graphs with d3.js, but ran out of time and just pushed the data to COSM.  (So, there goes my topic.)

David, why don't you present?  The slot is yours. I spend enough time on organizing the group and I'd rather save a presentation or two of my own to pinch hit when we're short on lightning talks.

So May is shaping up:

• Serpint - Louis Goessling
• Sharauprint - Nick Bauman

• Pi Temperature - David Fawcett
  

[Nick Bauman]

Someone should figure out how to serve USB devices on a rpi over a network before the next meetup. Opens a giant door, eh?

http://usbip.sourceforge.net/

--

[David Fawcett]

Peter,

I am OK with not presenting.  That meeting is only a week before the FOSS4G NA Conference and I will be insanely busy with that. 

I will pull do a talk later this summer about some spatial stuff though.

David.

--

[Peter J. Farrell]

David Fawcett said the following on 04/15/2013 12:09 PM:

Peter,

I am OK with not presenting.  That meeting is only a week before the FOSS4G NA Conference and I will be insanely busy with that. 

Totally understand David.  I'll swap myself back in.

• Serpint - Louis Goessling
• Sharauprint - Nick Bauman

• Tempi - Peter Farrell
  

I will pull do a talk later this summer about some spatial stuff though.

I'd totally dig that.

[David Goodger]

Hi Peter,

I may have something RasPi-related to talk about by the time the
meeting rolls around, but don't hold the slot for me. I don't have
anything yet.

Haven't done any development on my RasPi yet. Just yesterday I
installed RaspBMC, the XBMC (X-Box Media Center) software on it. And
watched a movie. So I ordered two more RasPis today, one to use as a
home server/NAS and the other just to play with.

I'll let you know if I come up with anything interesting.

-- Dave

[Peter J. Farrell]

Hey Dave, Sounds interesting. I'll just pencil you in for now.

David Goodger said the following on 04/15/2013 06:49 PM:

[Peter J. Farrell]

Looks like we have a pretty full night for our May 9th Raspberry Pi Themed meeting.  Just noticed (via Tim Z.) that Jessica Zehavi is going to present on Programming in Minecraft.

• Serpint - Louis Goessling
• Sharauprint - Nick Bauman

• Programming in Minecraft: Child's Play - Jessica Zehavi
• Tempi: Habitat temperature monitoring and reporting - Peter Farrell

@Dave Goodger, let me know if you want the last slot.

Peter J. Farrell said the following on 04/15/2013 06:20 PM:

David Fawcett said the following on 04/15/2013 12:09 PM:

Peter,

I am OK with not presenting.  That meeting is only a week before the FOSS4G NA Conference and I will be insanely busy with that. 

Totally understand David.  I'll swap myself back in.

I will pull do a talk later this summer about some spatial stuff though.

I'd totally dig that.

-- 
Peter J. Farrell
Principal Technologist - Maestro Publishing, LLC
http://blog.maestropublishing.com
Identi.ca / Twitter: @maestrofjp

Please do not send me Microsoft Office/Apple iWork documents. Send OpenDocument instead! http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/

[David Goodger]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 10:37 PM, Peter J. Farrell
<p...@maestropublishing.com> wrote:
> @Dave Goodger, let me know if you want the last slot.

Nothing interesting to say yet. Please leave the last slot open.
Someone who *does* have something interesting to say can take it.

--
David Goodger <http://python.net/~goodger>

[Adam Wolf]

I am working on a project for Maker Faire, and it may be "showable" by May 9th.

I created an Arduino->Lego Mindstorms NXT board, so you can control
LEGO motors and sensors using an Arduino. I released an upgrade for
it, allowing it to control 6 motors and 4 sensors, and hooked the
Arduino up to a Raspberry Pi. The Pi has a site written in Flask,
that uses Redis, and Socket.io to make a fun, "touchable" UI for
controlling and monitoring the sensors and motors.

I'm not really an expert in Redis/Socket.io/Javascript, but I was able
to bang them together enough times that it seems to work. It doesn't
really use any GPIO on the Raspberry Pi, so it would work the same on
your x86 box, or Beagleboard, or toaster, presuming it runs something
kinda Linux-y.

If this is interesting, I can let folks know by Monday if my progress
is such that I feel comfortable showing it off.

Adam Wolf
Wayne and Layne, LLC