The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized computer designed to make computing accessible to all. With the trend towards making computers easier and easier to use, the art of programming has been in decline. Programming is a powerful tool that lets us tell the computer exactly what we want to do. In much the same way as we use a hammer or screwdriver to help us with a physical task, we can use programming to help us with a mental task. The Raspberry Pi exposes programming software to make it as easy as possible to get started.
After introducing the Raspberry Pi computer and showing you how to set it up, this book will guide you through six separate mini-projects. Each project is fun, visual, and has plenty of scope for personalization. By the end of this book, you will understand and be able to use three different programming languages, and will be able to use them to build creative programs of your own.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Raspberry Pi, shows you what Raspberry Pi is and how you can get one set up and ready to use.
Chapter 2, Animating with Scratch, introduces the Scratch programming language and uses it to create simple (and not-so-simple) animations.
Chapter 3, Making Your Own Angry Birds Game, teaches you how to make your very own computer game using the Scratch programming language.
Chapter 4, Creating Random Insults, explores how random funny phrases can be generated using the Python programming language.
Chapter 5, Testing Your Speed, helps you to connect electronic components to your Raspberry Pi to create a physical game controlled by your computer code written in Python.
Chapter 6, Making an Interactive Map of Your City, teaches you more about Python and shows you how to access Google Maps to create a personal map of your area.
Chapter 7, Building Beats with Sonic Pi, introduces the Sonic Pi application and shows you how the programming concepts learned so far can be applied to the creation of music.
All the projects in this book require Raspberry Pi and all the necessary peripherals (listed at the beginning of Chapter 1, Getting Started with Raspberry Pi). Chapter 5, Testing Your Speed, adds simple electronic components, listed at the beginning of that chapter. Chapter 7, Building Beats with Sonic Pi, requires headphones or speakers.
This book is designed to help adults and children jump into creative coding using the Raspberry Pi. You will need patience, a sense of adventure, and a vivid imagination!
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Be very careful when using the sudo command."
A block of code is set as follows:
def count(maximum):
value = 0
while value < maximum:
value = value + 1
print "value =", valueWhen we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
def count(maximum):
value = 0
while value < maximum:
value = value + 1
print "value =", valueAny command-line input or output are written as:
sudo apt-get upgrade
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Select Raspbian and click on Install."
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