Pi Club

38 watchers

fetcheveryone Apr 2016 12:54pm, 8 Apr 2016 17,149 posts	0 fetcheveryone After a bit of a false start with my Energenie sockets (the board that they supply for the Pi was dead, but they sent me a replacement), I've managed to get all the elements working... I can track the temperature, and I can control the power socket from my Pi. The only problem is, I've now officially turned off my heating until at least October - so I've sort of called a halt to the project for now. Instead though, my next plan is to put a Pi in one of our bottle rockets The one in the picture didn't get too high (we were losing pressure too quickly), but we think that some of the others reached 90mph as they left the launch pad (iPhone 5 records at 30fps, and after 3 frames, the rocket was more than twice as high as the top of my head). So the new plan is to build a little balsa wood payload area inside our rocket, and fit the Pi out with an accelerometer, an altimeter, and to get it to control a little servo motor, so that it can detach the nose cone and deploy a parachute - or dare I suggest, boosters
bigleggy Apr 2016 1:10pm, 8 Apr 2016 5,694 posts	0 bigleggy Boosters , go for boosters
flanker Apr 2016 3:15pm, 8 Apr 2016 16,390 posts	0 flanker and photon torpedoes
AngusClydesdale Apr 2016 7:57pm, 8 Apr 2016 10,814 posts	0 AngusClydesdale Mate, that is GENIUS!!!
Gribbly Grobbly Apr 2016 12:53pm, 9 Apr 2016 17 posts	0 Gribbly Grobbly What a great idea. Depending on how quickly it all happens: i.e. detecting the end of the acceleration and detaching the nose cone, the real-time aspect may need to be done with an Arduino since the Pi with a non-real-time OS may have decided to go and twiddle its fingers at the crucial moment. Yes, they're used for balloon ascents and descents but there's more time available. It's just a thought. Most of my projects don't need pinpoint to-the-second accuracy and so I've never checked to see the real-time implications of the OS but there's much talk of using Arduino for real-time things.
Nightjar Apr 2016 6:01pm, 9 Apr 2016 4,195 posts	0 Nightjar Wondering about the power supply - long thin wire on a spool? Perhaps few more lifting bodies if you can work out how to sync the release.
Gribbly Grobbly Apr 2016 1:27pm, 11 Apr 2016 18 posts	0 Gribbly Grobbly modmypi.com Is 35g too heavy?
fetcheveryone Apr 2016 1:56pm, 11 Apr 2016 17,155 posts	0 fetcheveryone That's lighter than the 9V battery I'd imagined we'd use:-) Our flights are only lasting about 10 seconds, and even that's only when the parachute deploys. That looks very useful, ta
PeeG May 2016 2:51pm, 16 May 2016 188 posts	0 PeeG Where is a good place to start if you were looking at getting a Pi? Do bits of coding as part of my job, but never really looked into the Pi. Thought I would look into it a bit more for something to do with the 11 step son or for when I take a career change in September to train to be a Physics teacher.
fetcheveryone May 2016 2:57pm, 16 May 2016 17,227 posts	0 fetcheveryone I would recommend googling 'pi projects' and looking at some of the things people have done with them. Essentially, they are just little Linux boxes - but it's the projects they enable that make them cool to play with.