I was reading an elektor article and ran across the “BaroStick” Article. ( http://www.elektor.com/magazines/2013/may/barostick.2457910.lynkx ) — I have a Raspberry Pi on my birthday wishlist which I’m fairly certain I provided adequate hinting that it was the “to buy” present. It was the CanaKit that comes with all the typical goodies. I’ve been a long time user of the Microchip PIC chips and I’ll continue using them in designed but I felt that I need to break out of my VB.NET and assembler shell. Python actually looks worthy enough to tie up some neural connections; in the process of reading Simon Monk’s “Programming The Raspberry Pi” . The very same elektor also has an interesting article on BASIC to Python (May 2013 pg 26). Those of you who know me know I’m not a huge fan of C. You can keep your C and just chalk me up to a lost cause if you desire.. C is just not for me. I’ve done all the handy C introductions and hello worlds and manipulated it where I HAD to…but I’ll stick to assembler and BASIC thank you. I’ve also dabbled in plenty of PERL and COBAL and was formally educated with Pascal. While we’re talking about ridiculous aversions; I also have a huge, totally un-based, beef with Arduino… Like Apple vs. Microsoft beef. So you won’t catch me with an Uno unless I needed it to test the dielectric properties of FR4.
Okay stay with me… almost there.
Because of that distaste for all things Arduino; I never visit Adafruit ( http://adafruit.com ) unless I want to be reminded how perfectly lovely female EE’s can be. That being said I had purchased a BMP085 from my favorite website to visit when I’m feeling project-idea-block… Sparkfun last March. ( breakout board found at: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11282 ) I love their breakout boards.. a second stop would be http://www.tindie if you’ve been under a rock and find yourself trying to consider some “fun” projects to take on. With this BMP085 breakout board I have on my “to-do” list to build a altimeter for hiking. Is it heavier, yep.. going to use more power? Yep… look as attractive as that Suunto $500 watch? No where near.. but it’ll come off my bench. Turns out in my web expeditions to save myself some coding out dearest Limor has taken all of the work out of it.. ( http://learn.adafruit.com/using-the-bmp085-with-raspberry-pi/overview ) with a small fix: ( http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=38293#p191390 ). Will I be visit adafruit more often? Maybe so…
I’ll report back on this project once my birthday rolls around.
I guess we won’t be waiting until my birthday before i come back to this… And it’s clear ladyada is putting some of her eggs in the Raspberry basket.
1 x Adafruit Blue&White 16×2 LCD+Keypad Kit for Raspberry Pi[ID:1115] =
$19.95
1 x Raspberry Pi Model B 512MB RAM[ID:998] = $39.95
1 x Adafruit Pi Cobbler Breakout Kit for Raspberry Pi[ID:914] = $7.95
1 x 4-channel I2C-safe Bi-directional Logic Level Converter (BSS138)
[ID:757] = $3.95
1 x Adafruit Prototyping Pi Plate Kit for Raspberry Pi[ID:801] = $15.95
… On it’s way. Everything else will come off the bench. One complaint about this attractive looking LCD… You can’t stack (in any way obvious) these plates. Maybe I can modify it slightly to make that happen.