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II. Rosie Patrol



10 steps to convert our Rosie into Rosie Patrol - the greatest superhero of them all.  With a logo.

We continue to use the Raspberry Pi and Raspbian OS, and write even more code using the Python programming language.  We'll introduce lots more interaction with the outside world, and hacking of real-life objects, using servo motors, relays, dot LED matrix displays and GPS receivers.  And to help us do all of this, we'll play around with serial transmission of data (SPI), pulse width modulation (PWM) of signals, and venture into the world of application programming interfaces (APIs) so that Rosie Patrol can rely on the help of other computers that are much more knowledgable than her.

And... oh yes... we'll finally get to play with a 3D printer.  What could possibly go wrong?

1Lights in shining armour Use a relay to cycle through the lights on a head torch
2I'm just angling around Play around with servo motors to make stuff move
3Eye would like to have some I'sMake eyes using dot LED matrix displays, and control them using SPI
4Eh, P.I?Create and work with APIs to remotely make stuff happen
5Lights, camera, satisfactionTake photos using the Pi and a camera
6Beam me up, Rosie!Use a GPS receiver to track you exact location on Earth
7a, b, see, d Pick out letters from photos using Google Cloud Vision API
8Code: readUse Google Text-to-Speech to read books out aloud
9Farcical fartificial intelligenceForm random opinions about surrounding objects using Google Cloud Vision API
10Facial deconstructionUse a 3D printer to produce robot parts

You'll get to tackle:

  • Raspberry Pi
  • Raspbian operating system (basically Linux)
  • More hardware (relays, dot LED matrix displays, camera, GPS receiver...)
  • Python programming language, including use of APIs
  • Optical character recognition, for reading letters from pictures
  • Different types of electronic signals, like Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)...
  • And finally get to play around with 3D printers

Show me the proof!


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