The Raspberry Pi is a great little device – cheap enough that it can get into the hands of just about anyone and challenging enough to pique the curiosity of most. As a lifelong software developer and gadget freak I am fascinated with mine. I have decided though that it is pointless (for me) to use it for development as I have some many other outlets for that. I have decided therefore to use it to look at interfacing with hardware and have ordered a breadboard and other bits and pieces to do some simple tests. Nothing more challenging than turning on LEDs at this stage.
There is a really nice ecosystem building up around the Pi and there is plenty of help available on the web along with people selling all sorts of add ons for it. One that caught my attention on Kickstarter was the pIO which is a very simple adaptor that allows you to use a micro SD card with the Pi rather than the more usual full sized card. This has the immediate advantage that the card sits flush to the side of the device rather than hanging over the edge waiting to get knocked out. It is really cleverly engineered and more importantly works well.
The images below show the pIO in action and you can order one from the manufacturers here:
So did you get your LEDs working? I definitely want want of these as well but I can’t think of anything I want to do with it. Maybe building my own Xmas lights is the answer!
No, not yet, but have now got it in a case with the ribbon attached. Likely to be a an Xmas project I suspect. As for not knowing what to do with it, that has never stopped me in the past!