[HLUG] Hello / Starting with Raspberry Pi

[Alex Hempton-Smith]

Hi all,

Just joined this group and I'm hoping to attend the next meeting, great to see this group exists in Hereford.

I've mainly experienced Linux by interacting with server environments and doing some basic SSH commands. However I'm reasonably proficient at PHP so I'm looking forward to learning another language, something I can use with hardware.

I'd really like to get started with Raspberry Pi development, but I'm not sure where to start. I have an idea for some home automation projects that might be somewhere to start from.

Perhaps something basic on a Raspberry Pi Zero for automatically watering the plants. Opening a solenoid water valve for 5 minutes when it gets to dusk time, isn't forecast rain in the next 6 hours (weather and sunset web API's) and hasn't already rained that day (a moisture sensor). Then maybe elaborate on that with a dashboard I can access via wifi, send a text message when they've been watered (Trello API) and calculate how much water has been used...

Does anybody here have any experience with Raspberry Pi projects, and any suggestions for good ways to get started?

Thanks,
Alex

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