Raspberry Pi Hacks

Ruth Suehle and Tom Callaway, authors of Raspberry Pi Hacks (O’Reilly, December 2013), will share hints and tips for brave hackers ready to bring their ideas to life with the Raspberry Pi. They’ll start with the important basics of doing tricks with your Pi and go on to talk about a few fun projects, from game emulators to low-Earth-orbit photography. This talk is fun for both experienced builders and novices who would like to get started building something with the Pi, so regardless of whether you know how to use a soldering iron or use a cross-compiler, you'll find something useful.

Ruth and Tom will start with the basic-but-important Pi tricks, like choosing the best distro for the job you intend to do as well as address more challenging problems, like what happens when you need to build a custom kernel. We'll tell you things like how to add a power switch (since the thing doesn't come with one!) and check your power problems.

Then we'll show you some of the cool stuff that we and other people have made, from controlling Christmas light displays and using the Pi as an FM radio to a project so awesome, it scored the creator an upgrade from girlfriend to wife. This Pi talk is topped with a generous meringue of Lego TARDIS, Pi-powered Pipboy, and aliens, so come ready to geek out, both Pi and otherwise.