Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #161

Editor Lucy Hattersley This month Lucy has been benchmarking large language models on Raspberry Pi. Makes a change from talking to herself. rpimag.co We all had to start somewhere. The initial run of just 10,000 Raspberry Pi computers was designed to boost the quality of applications to Cambridge computer science departments. It did that; and then some. Raspberry Pi creates affordable and accessible computers used by engineers and educators. There’s a direct line from learning computer science on Raspberry Pi to becoming an engineer. Raspberry Pi has come a long way. We now see students who grew up with Raspberry Pi applying for jobs with us. The circle is complete. And we’re all better off for it. Now, more than ever, it’s vital that people understand how computers work, and…

Raspberry Pi has introduced Imager 2.0, the software program used to install operating systems onto storage drives to boot Raspberry Pi. Imager 2.0 is a “complete reimagining of the application that’s been brewing in our development pot for the past year,” says Tom Dewey, Software Engineering Manager at Raspberry Pi. “It brings a new wizard interface, the opportunity to preconfigure Raspberry Pi Connect, and improved accessibility for screen readers and other assistive technologies.” Raspberry Pi Imager was released in March 2020 with the aim of making getting started with Raspberry Pi much simpler than the workflow of the time. Since then, the team has been responding to feedback and gradually adding new features. “As the application progressed, so did the strain on the interface,” explains Dewey, “Eventually, the size of the…

Maker Chris Forde Chris is an engineer and athlete who makes and creates in a variety of areas, mechanical, electronics, microcontrollers, software, 3D printing, and handicrafts. rpimag.co/filascale If you’re going to use a 3D printer, then you need to be sure that you have enough filament for the job. “Knowing if there is sufficient filament will tell you if you need a standby reel, a new reel, or whether the current reel will do the job,” says maker Chris Forde. One way of determining this is to weigh the filament remaining on the spool before comparing it to the weight estimate provided by your slicing software. Understanding this, Chris came up with a solution. “Normally when weighing filament, people use a separate scale and a calculator, but I thought it would…

Maker Mark Olson Mark is an enterprise IT veteran and founded Flokk to bring digital record-keeping to the Canadian ranches where he grew up. flokk.ca Keeping tabs on cattle ranging over enormous ranches in rural Canada is a serious challenge. “Ranching operates outdoors, in all weather, in remote locations where there is no power or data connectivity,” explains Flokk founder and CEO Mark Olson. Record-keeping has traditionally been done using pocket notebooks, which of course are easily lost, damaged or trampled underfoot while the rancher struggles to check on each animal’s health and well-being. It’s the sort of task that hapless TV vets might have nightmares about. Nonetheless, detailed and fully up-to-date information about each cow is mandatory in the highly regulated world of animal husbandry. Computer scientist and farmer Mark…

Maker Mikey Damager Mikey is a UK-based artist, technologist, and technowomble. He builds interactive narratives, musical interfaces and AV installations from code and old bits of hardware he finds lying around. rpimag.co/ppc640deck When faced with a broken Amstrad PPC 640, Mikey Damager had two choices: to return the machine to its former glory or tear it apart and rebuild it using modern parts. He decided to do the latter, turning what was Amstrad’s first portable IBM PC compatible computer, released in 1987, into a cool-looking cyberdeck powered by Raspberry Pi 4. It produced a machine capable of running an interactive fiction project for Mikey’s master’s degree. “I wanted to explore AI and machine learning to see if I could incorporate some of the tools into a creative workflow in a way…

rpimag.co/moon-and-tide-clock Want a clock that “can’t tell time but instead uses the current time to calculate the lunar phase and an incredibly specific oceanographic prediction for a tiny subset of the UK coastline?” asks PJ Dines. “Then have I got the clock for you.” After all, time is just an illusion that we’ve mapped on to the natural phenomena around us: the phases of the moon, the length of the day, the changing of the seasons: these were all here before someone decided to divide the day into 24 so-called ‘hours’, but only use numbers that only go up to 12 to describe them. One person who’s transcended time, and possibly space, PJ is the creator of the Moon and Tide Clock. Built into a repurposed brass carriage clock, this e-paper…