[Sussex] PLUG Easter meeting

[Lisi Reisz]

Here is my report on the Raspberry Pi Fest at the Portsmouth and South East 
Hampshire Linux User Group meeting on Saturday 15 April 2017, Easter 
Saturday.

We had a lively and enjoyable session.  Four people demonstrated various 
projects on various Pi's.

Ian Bowden had travelled from Richmond Surrey with a complete Raspberry Pi 
repair toolkit, and repaired Chris Aubrey-Smith's broken SD card holder.  It 
was fascinating to watch anything so small being removed, by melting and 
cleaning up solder; and then being replaced: even though I personally 
practically had to put my nose in the solder to see it all!

Ian also showed us a TimePeace clock for dementia, powered by a Raspberry Pi, 
that he had made for his late mother, to remind her of the time, day, date,  
her name and location etc.  It was someone else's design, so he did not claim 
credit, but he showed us how it could be programmed to suit the individual 
for whom it was intended.

Ian also showed us a Raspberry Pi powered system, designed and made by him, 
that is installed on Teddington Lock to catch and protect elvers (baby eels ) 
as they travel up stream though the lock.

Chris Aubrey-Smith was the repairee in the above “case”.  The SD card holder 
on his early model Pi is now fully functional again.

He also showed us his completed all-in-one general purpose computer, assembled 
from a Raspberry Pi mounted on the back of a small second hand television, 
with HDMI input.  This - HDMI - is apparently rare!

Chris tells me further:

“The brand name is 'Luxor', but I've seen a near-identical example with a
different brand name. A label tells me that it was supplied by Asda in
Leeds.

“I think I gave them £20; I seem to remember giving them a bit more than
they were asking.

Yesterday I installed it on my bed-side table, where it serves as TV or
computer at the press of a button.... (I doubt that it will stay there as
it's too useful as a portable, general-purpose display for Pi experiments.)”

Peter Rose showed us his RuneAudio music system.  It produced an impressive 
noise with a Raspberry Pi with a Cirrus Logic Audio Card connected to a Gear4 
docking station, with the aid of a small (dimensions – not capacity) hard 
drive containing the music data files..  It was hard to believe that 
something so small could produce so impressive a sound.  

Peter had brought two Raspberry Pi's, one working, one broken.  As tends to be 
the way on these occasions, when the working one resolutely refused to work, 
Peter connected up the broken one and it worked perfectly!

http://www.runeaudio.com/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-as-Hi-Fi-player-with-RuneAudio/

The Pi that Peter believed to be working arrived in quite the most appealing 
little wooden case that I have seen for a Pi.  It was basically held together 
and ventilated by its own tension.  I have been unable to find a picture of a 
similar one on line.  Perhaps Peter could oblige?

John Spragg demonstrated his MAGIC MIRROR.  
<https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/>
I was slightly bemused by the messages it was giving out, in addition to 
information on the weather, which I could see being very useful while trying 
to decide what to wear in the morning.  Do I really want to be addressed 
as “Hey!  Sexy!” first thing in the morning – or ever????

Jon had also brought his impressive “Lego box”, with a Pi inside it..  In 
addition, clearly, to being able to be stacked one on top of the other, 
the “Lego” boards on the top (convex) and bottom (concave) looked as though 
they would click correctly into genuine Lego.  For ventilation between 
stacked Pi's?  For feet?  For some kind of decoration?  I felt deprived of 
any Lego to test it out!

Aidan Cole then gave us a very interesting talk on sshfs.

Sorry this has been so long coming.

Lisi