Easter is nearly upon us, and we’ll be stepping away from our home-office desks for a few days. Before we go, we thought we’d share some cool Easter-themed projects from the Raspberry Pi community.
Egg-painting robot
Teacher Klaus Rabeder designed, 3D-printed, and built a robot which his students programmed in Python to paint eggs with Easter designs. Each student came up with their own design and then programmed the robot to recreate it. The robot can draw letters and numbers, patterns, and figures (such as an Easter bunny) on an egg, as well as a charming meadow made of randomly calculated blades of grass. Each student took home the egg bearing their unique design.
The machine has three axes of movement: one that rotates the egg, one that moves the pens up and down, and one that makes servo motors put the pen tips onto the egg’s surface. Each servo is connected to two pens. Springs between the servo and pen make sure not too much pressure is applied.
What a cool way to spend your computing lessons!
Digital Easter egg hunt
Why hunt for chocolate eggs in a race against time before they melt, when you can go digital? Our very own Alex made this quick and easy game with a Raspberry Pi, a few wires, and some simple code. Simply unwrap your chocolate eggs and rewrap them with the silver side of the foil facing outwards to make them more conductive. The wires create a circuit, and when the circuit is closed with the foil-wrapped egg, the Raspberry Pi reveals the location of a bigger chocolate egg.
All the code and kit you need to recreate this game yourself is here.
Incubate baby chicks
The second-best thing about this time of year — after all the chocolate — is the cute baby animals. Lambs and bunnies get a special mention, but this project makes sure that chicken eggs are properly incubated to help baby chicks hatch. Maker Dennis Hejselbak added a live-streaming camera so he and other chick fans can keep an eye on things.
We’re sad to report that Emma still hasn’t revised her ‘No office chicks’ policy since we first reported this project back in 2015. Maybe next year?
Happy Easter!
Stand by for a delicious new issue of Wireframe magazine tomorrow. We’ll see you on Tuesday!
Website: LINK