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Every Monday, our friends at Raspberry Pi Official Magazine ask the question: have you made something with a Raspberry Pi over the weekend? Every Monday, their followers send amazing photos and videos of the things they’ve made.
Follow along with #MakerMonday each week over on Raspberry Pi Official Magazine’s various social media platforms!
We love the design of this LEGO case, and the functionality of the build is off the charts too
For those not in the know, the original GBA did not have a backlight without mods
Ah, a very cool way to make sure your lawn is healthy
This is a cool project, but we insist you do read our magazine!
Akkie here with a custom Pico display stand
More robots at events from Dr Footleg
A mind-your-head sensor is finished, saving noggins and hats everywhere
A fun little data project, visualising info with LEDs
Raspberry Pi Pico can be used for HID, so building your own custom keyboard is possible
Wonder if this will work with a Pico Jumbo?
We’re gonna need a bigger LEGO set
Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #156 out NOW!
You can grab the latest issue right now from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of our magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W!
For manufacturers and system integrators operating in the European market, regulatory compliance is a business-critical process. With the new cybersecurity requirements of the EU’s Radio Equipment Directive Delegated Act (RED-DA) now mandatory since 1 August 2025, understanding and meeting these standards is more important than ever. The good news is that for companies building industrial IoT, automation, or connected control systems, the Raspberry Pi platform provides a significant head start.
Testing radio equipment in an EMC chamber
What is RED-DA, and what are its cybersecurity requirements?
The EU Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU) ensures that all radio-enabled equipment sold in Europe meets essential requirements for safety, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), and spectrum usage, and its provisions will be familiar to many manufacturers. However, a recent Delegated Act (2022/30/EU) expands this framework. It includes three new essential cybersecurity requirements for all internet-connected radio equipment, including industrial devices:
Network protection (Article 3(3)(d)): Devices must be designed such that they don’t harm the network or misuse network resources. This includes protection against cyberattacks that could degrade service quality or cause network instability.
Data privacy (Article 3(3)(e)): Equipment that processes personal or sensitive data must incorporate safeguards to protect the user’s privacy. For industrial systems, this extends to sensitive operational data.
Protection against fraud (Article 3(3)(f)): Devices enabling financial transactions or other value transfers must include features to prevent fraud.
These requirements mandate a secure-by-design approach. They require robust technical documentation, risk assessments, and a formal Declaration of Conformity (DoC) for market entry.
Raspberry Pi: a compliant and cost-effective foundation
Raspberry Pi platforms are becoming a standard in industrial design. Their performance, versatility, value, and long-term availability provide the perfect solution to industrial integrators. Crucially for businesses, Raspberry Pi computers are already fully compliant with the core elements of the Radio Equipment Directive.
This conformity is part of our wider Global Market Access (GMA) support, designed to remove as much compliance hassle as possible from our customers.
Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5
This existing compliance provides a major advantage for industrial product development:
Accelerated time-to-market: By starting with a pre-certified, RED-compliant core, manufacturers can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with their own product’s regulatory and certification processes. This allows engineering teams to focus on their unique application, rather than on fundamental compliance.
Robust foundation: The core Raspberry Pi hardware and its official operating system, Raspberry Pi OS, are developed with security in mind. They provide a strong, well supported foundation for implementing the additional security measures required for the new directive, such as secure boot processes, cryptographic signing for over-the-air updates, and robust access controls.
Industrial ecosystem: The Raspberry Pi ecosystem is supported by a wide range of industrial partners. Their products are specifically designed to meet the rigorous demands of industrial applications, often with their own industry-specific certifications that complement the core RED compliance that Raspberry Pi offers.
Raspberry Pi Radio Module 2, a pre-certified module that provides turnkey wireless connectivity for RP2040- and RP2350-based products
A clear path to full compliance
While Raspberry Pi devices provide a compliant base, it’s essential for manufacturers to remember that they are ultimately responsible for the compliance of their final product. This requires a comprehensive strategy that includes:
Security by design: Integrating cybersecurity from the very beginning of the product lifecycle.
Lifecycle management: Establishing a plan for long-term security updates and vulnerability management.
Technical documentation: Maintaining detailed records of the product’s design, security features, and conformity assessment.
By leveraging the pre-existing regulatory compliance of the Raspberry Pi platform, companies can build secure, reliable, and market-ready products with greater efficiency and confidence, ensuring they meet the evolving demands of both customers and regulators. And to help our customers go to market in jurisdictions that don’t recognise modular certification or that restrict its application, our experienced in-house GMA team can manage the approval process from end to end.
Despite not being invited to maker Austin Mutschler-Hickam’s 90s-themed birthday party, I was interested in his Raspberry Pi–themed centrepiece: an AI-powered landline phone that talks to guests, gives them clues, and sends them on a mystery tour around the house.
Modding 90s hardware
Austin decided to replace a “vintage” (are we already calling them vintage?) landline phone’s internal electronics with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which would be soldered directly to the speaker and microphone to take control of them. He went with the AT&T Trimline 210 model primarily for its classic 90s look and large clamshell design, which could comfortably fit the Raspberry Pi inside. It also helped that this model of phone is still in production, meaning the pressure of one false slip with a soldering iron destroying a one-off antique wasn’t there.
Software was developed, with the help of LLMs, to emulate the phone’s keypad functions, allowing guests to dial, answer questions by pressing keys, and hang up. A small server was also created to simulate a phone network, allowing AI characters to call into the phone and speak to the guests. Austin goes into a lot of detail about how he captured individual key presses, the audio HAT required to get the speakers working with AI, and the pain of testing the phone’s microphone in his build guide.
Murder Interdimensional mystery party
In making his twist on those murder mystery parties we used to have — where guests receive a card telling them who their character is and then chaotically try to follow a list of instructions in tandem with other partygoers in the hopes that a fictional detective solves the crime before the dessert course is served — Austin crafted a more streamlined approach.
Picture the scene:
“A mysterious frequency becomes unstable, trapping guests in another dimension. Answering the phone, they meet Doctor Henderson, who attempts to help them stabilise the frequency to get them back home.”
Guests await calls from an AI character who feeds players clues once they’ve completed puzzles set by their phone-in guide. OpenAI Realtime API, which runs on another Raspberry Pi outside of the phone, allows the AI characters to have live conversations with guests.
Rickroll warning
If guests get impatient waiting for others to solve puzzles, they can entertain themselves by dialling out on the phone to request 90s hits (which are added, in real time, to the party’s Spotify queue). They can even speak to a faux Blockbuster rep and pretend to rent videos for a near-authentic 90s experience. Blockbuster was an elite Friday night experience, and speaking to even an AI version of a VHS vendor would heal me some.
Hello! Happy #MakerMonday to you. This week, we’re sharing one of our favourite builds from the new issue of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine. The empty shell of an iconic film character formed the basis of an excellent Raspberry Pi– and VEX-based robot build.
Younger years spent absorbed in various sci-fi films and TV shows such as Forbidden Planet, Silent Running, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lost in Space led to embedded software engineer Daniel Ramirez’s abiding interest in robots and his first forays into electronics. When he chanced upon an R2-D2 shell in his local hypermarket, Daniel saw a chance to combine his technological know-how with his sci-fi dreams. At first, the R2-D2 toy sat in his room “looking expectantly at me like Pinocchio looked at Geppetto, wondering when it could start moving around on its own”. Feeling “a little bit guilty”, Dan began looking for suitable parts with which to animate R2-D2. In the end, he chose a Raspberry Pi and some VEX Robotics construction kit components to bring the “trash-can-sized” Star Wars robot back into use.
Dan converted a motionless Star Wars toy without motors or wheels into a fully animated R2-D2 robot; Raspberry Pi 3, gearing, and parts from existing VEX Robotics construction kits made it walk and turn its head
Beep, beep, beep!
As a child, Daniel and his brother had a Heathkit ET-18 HERO 1 robot that their father bought to help them learn electronics and get through college. At the time, Daniel was struggling with maths and science, but the four-week project assembling and testing the robot from a kit easily paid off: he went on to have a career working for advanced technology companies in Massachusetts, as well as publishing articles about his various robotics and electronics projects.
Dan finds VEX construction sets ideal for new robot and animatronics projects, and for rapidly prototyping new inventions. He recommends the VEX user forum for inspiration and ideas. Parts are inexpensive and stronger, “with more rigid metal structural parts” than similar construction sets, and are often used in robot building contests in the US. He wanted to learn more about building an autonomous or tele-operated robot and chose Raspberry Pi because he could use it with software development tools like Python3, C, C++, Ada, and FreeBASIC.
The upgraded Raspberry Pi 3 version sports object detection, temperature sensors, and wireless controls
Reimagined classic
Daniel was keen to customise the toy robot and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had a rotating geared head and an empty battery compartment, but no wheels, motors, drivers, or controllers installed. To operate it as a robot that moved on its own and could sense its surroundings, he would need to rebuild the toy from scratch, plundering his stash of VEX Inventor kits for parts. Dan began by writing code in C and developing “a simple serial interface between Raspberry Pi 2 and the VEX EDR microcontroller, since it could drive the servo motors and read the sensors as plug and play”. Raspberry Pi proved a good choice, as it would be simple to connect up all the components that needed to fit inside. However, he needed to remove the robot toy’s base — not easy given just how robust the plastic case is. Removing the battery compartment gave Dan access to the inside, where he discovered a small hole for gearing, presumably to make the head turn. VEX motors and an axle joining the legs enable the robot to walk.
Using the VEX construction system allowed Dan to get the electromechanical aspects going “pretty fast”, but the firmware for the Raspberry Pi and the robot controller software required many iterations. In fact, his R2-D2 VEX robot began as a Raspberry Pi 2–based project that Daniel subsequently upgraded to Raspberry Pi 3.
Daniel inserted a VEX motor beside one of the robot’s feet, with an axle so it can walk
The project cost approximately $300. Daniel observes that used parts can be found on eBay fairly inexpensively, as schools have upgraded to VEX Cortex and VEX V5 systems. “The R2-D2 shell was $50, but enterprising hobbyists with 3D printers could manufacture their own.” He advises a slightly larger shell than the one he used: fitting the VEX parts into its 1ft 6in, 8in-diameter case was “a bit tight”. Smaller motors that fit inside the hollow legs could make for an elegant alternative.
“I can’t say enough about Raspberry Pi 3,” enthuses Daniel. “It runs reliably and does not use much battery power, so I can run the robot for hours. Its software development tools are excellent!” However, “getting the robot to communicate between the two main controllers took a while to do”.
There is plenty of detailed documentation in the VEX Library. And you can watch a YouTube video of Daniel’s VEX-based R2-D2 robot in action below.
New tricks
The original robot is still working. Having retired, Daniel upgraded it to Raspberry Pi 3 and is currently developing a new model that can play chess with a 6DOF (degrees of freedom) robot arm, wrist, and gripper. He also recently upgraded his VEX robot with temperature and pressure sensors, object detection so it can move around autonomously, and the option to control it from a laptop or remotely, rather than a remote control.
Daniel’s advice to someone keen to build their own robots and animatronics projects is to begin with construction sets such as LEGO, VEX, or Meccano Erector so you become familiar with their plug-and-play motors, sensors, controllers, gears, and structural parts. “Learn to adapt them to [your] own robots, mix and match various construction systems, or use scrap metal and surplus parts.”
Raspberry Pi Connect enables you to remotely access your Raspberry Pi devices via screen sharing and remote shell from anywhere. It’s a powerful tool, and being able to review when a device has been accessed via Connect, and by whom, is a critical part of keeping your organisation secure.
As well as granting access to your devices to an unlimited number of authorised users, Connect for Organisations now features an improved audit log to make it easy for administrators to review activity from the past 90 days. With the most recent events first, you can see every screen sharing and remote shell session, the creation of access tokens, the addition and removal of devices, and any changes to users and their roles.
New features
Country tracking: see where events took place and spot suspicious activity
Download CSV: download detailed logs for auditing and security reviews
Filtering: focus on the specific actions important to you
We now geolocate every event by IP address, storing only the country code in order to preserve privacy. This information is included in both the web interface and in the newly added CSV export option to help you easily spot access from an unexpected country.
Administrators can now download a CSV file of the entire audit log for a more detailed analysis in their preferred spreadsheet software. We’ll also prompt you to download the log if you decide to delete your organisation, so you can keep the logs for posterity.
Even without exporting, we now offer the ability to filter the audit log by action, so you can focus on one or more specific actions such as “Screen sharing session started” and “Invite accepted”.
Together, these new features can aid administrators in a security investigation if a team member reports unusual activity. For example, you could:
Filter the audit log to see only the relevant actions
Check whether any of the events originated from an unexpected country
Export a detailed timeline for your security team
These improved audit log features are available immediately for existing Connect for Organisations users. New to Connect for Organisations?Start a four-week free trial now and share remote access to your devices with an unlimited number of users, with pricing based on the peak number of registered devices.
In the brand new issue of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, out today, we learn that a synthesiser squeezed into an accordion sounds amazing.
Although it’s often considered to be a quaint, old-fashioned instrument in large parts of Europe and North America, the accordion is more popular than you may think. As well as playing a significant role in traditional, folk and ethnic music, it’s used to produce jazz, pop and classical tunes. It’s also of great cultural importance and a great symbol of musical expression.
It still looks like an ordinary chromatic accordion, albeit with new control knobs
Sergey Antonovich is certainly a fan and he loves to play the button accordion. He also spends a good chunk of his free time studying music theory and creating digital music instruments and accessories. To that end, he’s been working on bringing digital synthesiser capabilities to an acoustic accordion while preserving the instrument’s authentic feel and sound.
To achieve this, Sergey has been using the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+, which he praises for its balance of performance and thermal efficiency. He’s also produced a version that uses the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W computer and created it with simplicity in mind so that anyone can try it out and see how it works.
The result is a system that is more flexible and less expensive than off-the-shelf MIDI synthesiser alternatives, that’s still capable of playing beautiful, digital sounds. What’s more, Sergey has fitted all of the electronics inside the accordion rather than have it trailing externally, which has allowed him to create a self-contained musical experience offering the very best sound quality.
Melodic move
The project has been challenging. “When designing a digital musical instrument, the sound engine – the synthesiser – is not just a component. It is the instrument, in the ears of the audience,” Sergey explains. “No matter how sophisticated the keyboard, pressure sensors, or expressive interface may be, without a reliable and flexible sound engine, the instrument cannot speak.
This is the first headless prototype on Raspberry Pi CM3+. It boots straight into performance mode. With 3ms latency, it is in the same class as hardware synths
“In my work developing digital accordions, this challenge became central,” he adds. “I had already developed a working logic board based on a microcontroller – responsible for scanning buttons, detecting bellows pressure, and generating MIDI messages. But I needed a standalone, embedded MIDI synthesiser: a system that receives MIDI input (via hardware DIN or USB), and outputs audio in real time. Crucially, it had to be small, reliable, low-latency, and flexible enough to support wavetable synthesis with user-replaceable sound banks.”
Although Sergey did consider external MIDI synthesiser modules such as the MIDIPLUS miniEngine Pro, Ketron SD2 or Ketron SD1000, he didn’t want separate cables, power, and clunky mounting. He also thought about using integrated hardware solutions offered by a small number of companies whose integrated circuits provide sample-based wavetable synthesis in compact form. But, again, he saw problems.
“They present several challenges for independent developers,” he says. “There is no public access to development kits or documentation. They use proprietary sound bank formats, editable only with internal or vendor-provided tools. They have locked feature sets, meaning custom user banks are difficult to implement without proprietary tools, licences or vendor support. And cost-effective ICs like the SAM2695 or VS1053b rely on compact, generalised samples that may not fully capture the nuance of acoustic instruments.”
Bellows power
As a result, Sergey began exploring a fully open approach. “I decided to use FluidSynth, a software synthesiser that supports SoundFont 2 wavetable banks that can be tuned for real-time operation on Linux-based single-board computers,” he says.
FluidSynth is a software synthesiser that responds to real-time MIDI input by generating audio and it has a shared library that can be used in other programs. It also has a built-in command-line shell. Running it on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ appeared the most logical solution to Sergey’s problems and it means he could take advantage of the four ARM cores and 1GB of RAM, which is enough to load most SoundFont 2 banks.
All of the components fit inside the right-hand half of the accordion and it doesn’t have the limitations of closed systems or hassle of external gear
“Using Raspberry Pi for audio synthesis offers several key advantages,” he says. It has an open software stack with no vendor lock-in and full control over tuning, latency, and effects. When combined with FluidSynth, it also enables full support for the SoundFont 2 support, allowing users to replace or customise their sound banks, which is a highly requested feature among musicians.
“It also offers a good performance-to-power ratio which is critical for embedded use in sealed housings,” adds Sergey. “And there’s a strong developer ecosystem with up-to-date kernels, documentation, overlays, and toolchains.”
Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ can be integrated in a compact board design as well. “For benchtop prototyping, I used the Waveshare Compute Module PoE Board, Waveshare WM8960 Audio HAT, and a simple DIN MIDI input schematic on a 6N139 optocoupler,” Sergey says.
Sound journey
For the instrument to work effectively, the time between pressing a key and the sound playing needed to be short. “The most critical metric for live performance is trigger-to-sound latency and, while hardware synthesisers typically achieve 1.5 to 3 milliseconds (ms), software solutions must carefully balance CPU load and audio buffering to stay within acceptable range – ideally below 10 ms to remain imperceptible to the performer,” Sergey explains.
The system is also designed for safe power removal: thanks to a read-only root file system, the module can be switched off simply by cutting power
Using a minimal Buildroot-based Linux system and carefully tuned audio parameters, he achieved a consistent average latency of 3ms (from receiving a MIDI event to the sound being generated). Including MIDI transmission of around a millisecond, the total response time has come in at 4ms. ‘That’s fully competitive with dedicated hardware synths,” Sergey notes.
The system also handles playing 64 different notes simultaneously, which Sergey says is sufficient for a digital accordion with layered auto-accompaniment. “The audio output is clean, and no artifacts or dropouts occur under load.”
The result is excellent latency, full musical responsiveness, and great sound quality in an instrument that is fully self-contained and can be played without relying on any external gear – enabling untethered movement on stage when paired with a basic wireless audio transmitter.
And while the instrument can be played electronically, the acoustic sounds still respond naturally to bellows movement while digital voices can be configured to ignore or follow the same motion. “It confirms the viability of this setup in a real, stage-ready instrument,” he says.
Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #156 out NOW!
You can grab the latest issue right now from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico W!
Like any silicon device, RP2350 wasn’t perfect on day one. The launch stepping, designated A2, is affected by a number of errata, including an error in the GPIO pad design which prevents pads from properly going into a high-impedance state (Erratum 9), and a number of security issues identified by participants in our RP2350 Hacking Challenge. Today, we’re happy to announce the immediate availability of a new A4 stepping, which addresses the vast majority of these issues.
To coincide with the availability of the A4 stepping, we’re also launching RP2354: pin-compatible variants of the 60-pin RP2350A and 80-pin RP2350B parts with 2MB of flash memory in-package. Each RP2354 part costs just 20 cents more than the equivalent RP2350 part.
And finally, we have another RP2350 Hacking Challenge, offering a $20,000 prize for a practical side-channel attack on the power-hardened AES library that underpins our decrypting bootloader.
What is fixed in A4?
Firstly, and most importantly for general users, we’ve fixed Erratum 9. A small tweak was applied to the pad macro to eliminate the undesirable leakage in the high side of the pad; this leakage gives rise to the large negative-going excursion in the current-against-voltage trace for A2 below. As a result, external resistors are no longer required to pull inputs low, though they may safely be retained in existing designs.
Errata 20, 21 and 24 are boot ROM security vulnerabilities discovered in the course of the RP2350 Hacking Challenge. These have been fixed in the A4 boot ROM, which, in addition, implements a variety of new defensive strategies to reduce the likelihood of future exploits. We have also taken this opportunity to fix a number of minor functional errata in the boot ROM.
Erratum 16 is a security vulnerability, again discovered in the course of the RP2350 Hacking Challenge, which relates to the behaviour of the OTP when power is removed during a read operation. This has been fixed through changes to the wrapper circuitry surrounding the OTP macro.
Erratum 3, which relates to the behaviour of the GPIO_NSMASK registers on 60-pin RP235x parts, has also been fixed.
What isn’t fixed in A4?
One of the winners of the Hacking Challenge exposed a vulnerability in the OTP bit array itself. Using a technique called Passive Voltage Contrast, they were able to painstakingly, and at significant expense, read out the bitwise OR of pairs of adjacent bits stored in the OTP; in principle it may be possible to extend this attack to retrieve the complete contents of the OTP.
This vulnerability is not fixed in the A4 stepping. An upcoming application note will describe how to store secrets in OTP so as to mitigate both the current vulnerability and a hypothetical future attack which can achieve complete readback.
We have not fixed a number of other non-security errata, for which workarounds exist, and where a fix would require complete reimplementation of the design.
Anatomy of a metal spin
The A4 stepping is what we call a metal spin: the functional changes, including the updated boot ROM, are implemented by modifying some of the layers of wiring that connect the gates in the design. This visualisation shows all the locations in which A4 differs from A2; the dense block of changes at the bottom of the die implements the updated boot ROM.
Zooming in, here is the implementation of an individual fix (in this case, part of the OTP security hardening required to address Erratum 16).
Frequently asked questions
How do I know whether I have an A2 or an A4?
The stepping identifier can be found on the top of the package, as shown below.
Is A4 software-compatible with A2?
Yes. We have made a few minor changes to version 2.2.0 of the Pico SDK and to Picotool to support the A4 stepping.
Will you EOL the A2 stepping?
We have already ceased production of A2, moved all production to A4, and withdrawn the remaining inventory of A2 from channel. A4 is a drop-in replacement for A2, and customers should not experience any issues migrating to A4.
What happened to A3?
A3 was an intermediate stepping used to qualify a subset of the fixes present in the A4 stepping.
Will there be a PCN in PIP?
You can find the product change notice for the A2 to A4 transition here.
Will Pico 2 products switch to A4?
Eventually all Pico 2 products will use the A4 stepping. While the A3 stepping will not be made available to silicon customers, approximately 30,000 units of A3 inventory will be used to build Pico 2 and Pico 2 W products.
Did you change the pinout or package design with A4?
No: the A4 stepping is only an update to the metal layers of the RP2350 die.
Do I still need to use the Abracon polarised inductor and Abracon crystal with A4?
We have no current plans for an A5 stepping. Over time, it is possible that more security vulnerabilities or functional issues will be found, at which point we will react appropriately.
RP2354: stacked flash for smaller-footprint applications
Our microcontrollers have always relied on external flash memory, connected over a QSPI bus, for non-volatile storage. While using an external package maximises capacity and vendor flexibility for our customers, that flexibility comes at a cost in sourcing effort and PCB area. RP2354 stacks a Winbond 16Mbit (2MB) flash die in-package, providing a simple solution for customers who require a modest amount of storage at an incremental cost of $0.20 per unit.
The complete price structure for our microcontroller products is summarised in the table below. 7-inch reels of each product contain 500 units; 13-inch reels contain either 3,400 units (RP2040, RP235xA) or 2,500 units (RP235xB).
Those of you interfacing RP2350 to retro computer hardware will be pleased to hear that, after an extensive qualification campaign, RP2350 is now officially 5V tolerant!
Just make sure to keep VDDIO powered when 5V is applied to any GPIO pad, otherwise the pad will be damaged. And be sure to read the relevant sections in the updated datasheet.
Rob Zwetsloot takes us on a tour of Raspberry Pi camera projects of all kinds in this article from issue #155 of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
Raspberry Pi camera projects have been around for about as long as Raspberry Pi itself — folks were connecting USB webcams and properdecentcameras to Raspberry Pi long before the first ever Camera Module came out just over a year after the original Model B.
Now there are all manner of Raspberry Pi cameras and even better webcams to use, along with builds and makes of every variety. Here’s just some of the very cool things you can do with a Raspberry Pi and a camera. Say cheese!
MPi point-and-shoot camera
Upcycle an old camera with a Raspberry Pi, film included.
The Raspberry High Quality Camera uses lenses that have a manual focus you can twist, much like cameras of old (and now if you turn autofocus off), and maker Michael Suguitan wanted to capture the original method of camera operation of a Leica M2 using a HQ Camera Module and a Raspberry Pi Zero.
The original range finder is incorporated into the build
It actually shoots to film and uses the original mechanical shutter. While Michael did add an LCD screen to the rear of the body, he ended up not using it so that he can once again capture the real feeling of old photography – namely, the agonising wait hoping the photo turned out OK.
For Ultraman, cheese is just SHUWATCH
Eye-Pi IR infrared photography
Many Raspberry Pi cameras have a NoIR variant – usually used for night photography or other infrared sensing builds. Using it for normal photography creates surreal, beautiful photos like in this Eye-Pi IR project that really capture the imagination – we’ve been thinking about it for ten years, after all.
It’s almost like a Hollywood post-apocalyptic colour grade
Timelapse photography
See the world in fast-forward.
As Raspberry Pi cameras are controlled via code or terminal commands, it’s very easy to set one up to take photos on specific triggers. A timelapse video is basically just a series of photos taken at regular intervals that are then strung together – an easy task for Python.
The setup is very simple – although you may need to weatherproof it if you plan to set up outside
This version is a tutorial from a couple of years ago, so the code will reference libcamera – this has since been renamed to rpicam. It works the same – you’ll just need to replace, e.g., libcamera-still with rpicam-still. You can also find the updated version in The Official Raspberry Pi Camera Guide 2nd Edition.
Watch the clouds go by, a favourite British pastime
Astrophotography
Astrophotography works very similarly to timelapse photography in that it can use multiple photos to create an image. The trick is to have long exposure times, and several hours spare on a dark hill in the countryside. The things you’ll see, though…
Star trails are made by compositing multiple photos on top of one another
Stop-motion animation
Turn real life into animated shorts
A classic film-making and animation technique that just about anyone can understand. It’s so universal that the Lego movies are entirely computer generated yet replicate the style. It couldn’t be easier – set up a scene, snap, set up the next frame.
The orange man is what you make when there’s no snow
Code Club, part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, has a great tutorial on how to create your own version with a simple push button. We’ve also seen versions that overlay a ghostly image of the previous frame you took so you can better position your next shot.
It’s a very simple circuit and Code Club makes it very easy to set up and program
CinePi video camera
The Python library rpicam is fully capable of taking video as well as photos – including high-frame-rate videos for slow-mo shots. CinePi is one of the most impressive applications of this, aiming to create a true cinema camera powered by a Raspberry Pi, with your imagination the only limit.
The beautiful CinePi XL is a fully functional cinema camera
Naturebytes nature trap
See what beasties lurk in your garden
This classic Raspberry Pi-based kit comes with everything you need to get shooting your local wildlife – a weatherproof case, a motion sensor, and ways to affix it to a tree. You can provide your own Raspberry Pi and camera, or get a kit that has one included.
A Naturebytes camera in its natural setting. What wonders will it see?
Very simply, once a threshold of motion is detected by a PIR sensor, the camera will take photos and/or record a little video snippet. You can add a NoIR camera and IR LEDs for night-time shots (especially if you want to see some hedgehogs).
The kit uses a Raspberry Pi A+ and comes with a preloaded SD card
Security camera
Home security can be important, and with the custom MotionEyeOS for Raspberry Pi, you can set up your own little network of security cameras in your home. Pi My Life Up has a great little tutorial on how to do this, and includes the use of standard webcams.
Photobooth
Make weddings and other events something folks will remember
Photobooths can be very simple or quite complex. On the surface, you just need a big button to activate a camera. Perhaps you’ll have a countdown, and a screen so people can frame themselves properly. The truly good ones have overlays with stickers that you can move around and even printers.
If you can’t have overlays, you can always use physical props
This version was maker Jack Barker’s first Raspberry Pi project, and while it didn’t have a printer, it was finished in time for his own wedding. It successfully took photos of guests, saved to an SD card to retrieve later, and was apparently a great conversation starter.
The box took about 20 hours to build
AI image recognition
In issue 154 of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, we had a tutorial on using the Raspberry Pi AI Camera to identify different models of Raspberry Pi. AI models can be trained for various tasks, such as a face-detection lock or even checking a production line for faulty products.
To read more from Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, get the latest issue #155 right now from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. You can also buy it from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS. Better yet, subscribe to the print version: not only do we deliver worldwide, but if you sign up to a six- or twelve-month print subscription you’ll get a free Raspberry Pi Pico W!
Every Monday, our friends at Raspberry Pi Official Magazine ask the question: have you made something with a Raspberry Pi over the weekend? Every Monday, our followers send us amazing photos and videos of the things they’ve made.
Follow along with #MakerMonday each week over on our various social media platforms!
This Thinkman is a bit like a Walkman but it will talk to you
We love this cardboard robot, fittingly made with tech boxes
You may recognise this from our interview – Pater (Brendan) is still working diligently on it
The Game of Life has rarely looked this good!
We now want to make a working giant GBA
Yep, Raspberry Pi 4 had the Ethernet port on the other side to the usual B/B+ configuration. It was one of the first things we asked about when we saw it
Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #155 out NOW!
You can grab the latest issue right now from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, WHSmith, and other newsagents, including the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge. It’s also available from our online store, which ships around the world. And you can get a digital version via our app on Android or iOS.
You can also subscribe to the print version of our magazine. Not only do we deliver worldwide, but people who sign up to the six- or twelve-month print subscription get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico W!
Millions of us enjoy nothing more than spending hours racking up high scores on our favourite video games. But too few engage in an even more gratifying way to spend time — making them! The latest book from Raspberry Pi Press is the second edition of Sean M. Tracey’s Make games with Python, and we hope it inspires you to create games of your own.
Go from gamer to game developer
The Pygame library makes it easy to create games and interactive software with Python. In this book, you’ll learn the Pygame way to draw on screen, animate objects, react to user input, play sounds, and model physics and forces. Each chapter will add to your knowledge of Python game development, and along the way, you’ll gain a better understanding of the games you play. Not only that — you’ll learn enough to create almost any game you can imagine.
As you work your way through the book, you’ll learn how to create shapes and move them on screen. From there, you’ll learn how to turn shapes into sprites — the characters, obstacles, and enemies in your game. You’ll make your sprites obey laws of physics that you define, and write code to react to collisions between sprites. In the final two chapters of the book, you’ll create your own shoot-em-up game and save the galaxy from invading enemies!
Tested to run on the latest Raspberry Pi hardware and operating system, the games and instructions in this book work on Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Get your copy today
Although we didn’t design this book for complete beginners to programming, beginners won’t find it too advanced either. This new title is now available at our online store — and in the offline store — for £19.99. You can also find it on Amazon UK or Amazon US. If you’ve written simple programs in Python (or a similar programming language) and can perform basic administrative tasks (creating files and navigating your computer’s file system) without too much difficulty, then you’re ready to get started.
