Adventures in Raspberry Pi

Carrie Anne Philbin is a Google Certified and Raspberry Pi Certified Computing Teacher. She is also the founder and presenter of the award winning Gurl Geek Diaries (www.geekgurldiaries.co.uk). Currently, Carrie Anne is working with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to improve the teaching of Computing in schools

About the Author v Acknowledgments vi Introduction 1 Adventure 1 You Have a Raspberry Pi Now What? 9 What Hardware Do You Need? 10 What Other Equipment Is Helpful? 12 Setting Up the Raspberry Pi 14 Downloading and Copying the Raspbian Operating System 14 Preparing an SD Card to Store Your Software 15 Making It Easy with NOOBS 17 Plugging in the Hardware 18 Installing and Configuring the Software 19 Logging in to Your Raspberry Pi 22 Exploring the Desktop in Raspbian 23 Shutting Down Your Raspberry Pi 25 Backing up an SD Card Image 25 Adventure 2 Taking Command of Your Raspberry Pi 27 Exploring the Terminal 29 Commands for Navigating Through Your File System 31 Understanding sudo 35 Launching Programs from the Command Line 35 Managing Files and Directories 36 Installing and Updating Applications 37 Downloading and Installing Applications 37 Learning More About an Application 38 Upgrading Your Apps 39 Editing Files 39 Using Shutdown and Restart Commands 41 Continuing Your Text Adventure 41 Adventure 3 Creating Stories and Games with Scratch 45 Getting Started with Scratch 46 The Scratch Interface 47 A Quick Hello from Scratch Cat 48 Setting the Stage 50 Creating Costumes and Original Sprites 52 Using the Scratch Sprite Image Library 52 Editing an Existing Sprite 52 Creating Your Own Original Sprites 53 Animating a Crazy Monkey 53 Creating an Adventure Role-Playing Game 59 Creating Your Sprite and Stage 59 Setting the Start Position of the Adventurer Sprite 60 Creating Variables: Including Health Points for the Adventurer Sprite 61 Controlling the Direction and Movement of the Adventurer Sprite 63 Entering a Cave and Switching Backgrounds 64 Adding a Script to Make the Adventurer Sprite Move Between Backgrounds 64 Adding a Script to Switch the Stage 66 Creating an Enchanted Key to Exit the Cave and Giving Extra Health Points 67 Using "if" Statements to Show and Hide Sprites 69 Creating Health-Point-Stealing Sprites 70 Improving the Movement of the Adventurer Sprite Using "if" Blocks 71 Creating a Game Over Screen 72 Ideas for Improvements to Your Game 73 Adventure 4 Programming Shapes with Turtle Graphics 77 Scratch Turtle Graphics 78 Using Pen Down and Pen Up 79 Drawing Simple Shapes 80 Using "clear" and Setting a Start Point 82 Using Variables Instead of Values 82 Changing the Size and Colour of the Pen 83 Creating Spiral Patterns 84 Using User Input to Determine the Number of Sides 86 Python Turtle Graphics 86 Introducing Python Modules 87 The IDLE Environment and the Interpreter Window 87 Using the Turtle Module in Python 88 Using a Text Editor 90 Using "for" Loops and Lists 91 The "range" Function 93 Other Python Turtle Module Commands 94 Pen Up and Pen Down 94 Setting the Pen Colour and Size 95 Stamping 95 Some Super Spirals 95 Further Adventures with Python Turtle 97 Adventure 5 Programming with Python 101 Getting Set Up for Python 102 Python Programming Language 102 The IDLE Environment 102 Programming in Python: Using a Function 103 Using a Text Editor to Create a Code File 106 Using the Python time and random Modules 108 Python Text Adventure Game 112 Getting User Input 112 Using Conditionals 113 Using a while Loop 116 Using a Variable for Health Points 118 Putting It All Together 119 Defining Functions 121 The get-input Function 121 The handle-room Function 122 Creating a Main Game Loop 122 Continuing Your Python Adventure 126 Adventure 6 Programming Minecraft Worlds on the Raspberry Pi 129 Getting Started with Minecraft Pi 130 Minecraft Pi Controls 132 Your First Minecraft Pi Python Program 133 Using Coordinates in Minecraft Pi 135 Finding the Player s Location 135 Changing the Player s Location 137 Placing a Block 138 Placing Multiple Blocks 139 Creating a Diamond Transporter 142 Sharing and Cloning Minecraft Pi Programs 145 Further Adventures with Minecraft Pi 146 Adventure 7 Coding Music with Sonic Pi 149 Getting Started with Sonic Pi 150 The Sonic Pi Interface 151 Creating Your First Sounds with Sonic Pi 153 Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 155 Repeating Lines in a Loop 158 First Electronic Track 160 Using Different Synthesizer Sounds 160 Using Prerecorded Samples 161 Creating a Surprising Tune 163 Using "rand" to Play Random Notes 163 Using Algorithms 164 Running Two Scripts at the Same Time 166 Adding Effects 167 Make a Recording of Your Music 167 Further Adventures with Sonic Pi 168 Adventure 8 Using the GPIO Pins on the Raspberry Pi 171 Using a Raspberry Leaf Diagram 172 Electronic Basics 175 Using the Python Library to Control GPIO 177 Do You Have a Rev 1 or a Rev 2 Board? 177 Making an LED Blink 179 Creating the LEDblink Python Code 180 Connecting the LEDblink Components 181 Running LEDblink.py as the Super User root 182 Using a Button to Turn on an LED 184 Creating the buttonLED Python Code 184 Connecting the buttonLED Components 185 Running buttonLED.py as the Super User root 186 The Marshmallow Challenge 187 Creating the Marshmallow Button 188 Mapping Marshmallow Input to a Keyboard Key 190 Scratch Marshmallow Game 192 Further Adventures with GPIO Pins 195 Adventure 9 The Big Adventure: Building a Raspberry Pi Jukebox 197 An Overview of the Jukebox Project 198 What You Will Need 199 Part One: Creating the LCD Screen 200 Preparing the LCD Screen by Adding Headers 200 Mounting the LCD Screen and Wiring Up the Breadboard 201 Adding Scripts to Drive the LCD Screen 203 Part Two: Downloading and Playing MP3s 205 Installing a Media Player and Getting Music Files 205 Writing a Jukebox Python Program 208 Part Three: Controlling the Jukebox with Buttons 212 Connecting the Buttons 212 Adapting Your Jukebox Program to Include GPIO Buttons 214 Part Four: Displaying Jukebox Information on the LCD screen 216 Finishing Up 221 Appendix Where to Go from Here 223 Websites 223 Clubs 225 Inspiring Projects and Tutorials 226 Videos 226 Books and Magazines 227 Glossary 229 Index 235