Enginursday: "Getting Started With Raspberry Pi" Video Series
In this three-part video series, I show users how to setup their Raspberry Pi with Raspbian, connect a humidity and temperature sensor, and Tweet the results on a regular basis using Python.
First things first - if you are still waiting on your Arduino Day order, the last orders are going out by the end of the week! Thank you for your patience! Now on to today's post...
Have you been eyeing the Raspberry Pi but don't know where to start? Does the thought of the immense amount of computing power* in a single board computer (SBC) give you nightmares? Well, look no further! I (along with the video editing prowess of our MarComm department) have put together a 3-part video series on getting started with the Raspberry Pi.
Over the course of the series, I show you how to setup a Raspberry Pi with the Raspbian Linux distribution, connect a humidity and temperature sensor, and send the results to Twitter on a regular basis. In the end, you'll have your very own "Tweeting Weather Station!" In the process, you will get to configure the Raspberry Pi, write a few Python programs, and blink some LEDs (always exciting).
In the first tutorial, I walk you through the setup process for the Raspberry Pi and create a simple blinky program using an LED and Python. You will need a Raspberry Pi and some accessories.
ReplaceMeOpen
ReplaceMeClose
In the second video, we connect the Raspberry Pi to a WiFi network, configure our Twitter account to allow program access, and post a Tweet using Python. To accomplish Twitter posts, we will use the Twython package. If you are following along, you will need a WiFi Dongle to go along with your setup.
ReplaceMeOpen
ReplaceMeClose
Finally, we put everything together to create our "Tweeting Weather Station." You will need an HIH-6130 Humidity and Temperature Sensor to attach to your Raspberry Pi. The programming gets slightly more complicated than the last two videos, but go with it even if it does not completely make sense.
ReplaceMeOpen
ReplaceMeClose
If you have not tried using a single board computer yet, I hope that these videos will convince you to give it a shot. If you are currently elbow-deep in SBC goodness, what projects are you working on? What concepts would you like to see covered (in future videos, tutorials, and blogs) that could help other people learn about SBCs?
* When compared to other embedded processors, such as the 16MHz Arduino Uno
[Edit 8/20/14] The Python code used in the videos can be found here
