The winter season is almost here as we wind down the year with some amazing Raspberry Pi projects. These are some of the best creations we’ve had the honor of featuring over the last month. As always, these makers use the best Raspberry Pi accessories and HATs available to bring their ideas to life.
It’s also worth noting that the Raspberry Pi 5 has debuted and we’re very excited to share some projects and a closer look at the new boards capabilities. In addition to looking at what the community is up to, we also have a tutorial to share from the staff here at Tom’s Hardware.
Raspberry Pi Robot Doly
This project, known as Doly, is completely open source with a Kickstarter accompanying its release for those who want to purchase the unit already made. This little companion bot features a Raspberry Pi and locomotes using tank tracks. There are two round LCD screens used to animate its eyes.
Why we love it:
This is one of those projects that’s fun to learn with but also leaves you with something cool to play with when you’re done putting it together. If you want to learn the basics of robotics, this is a fun starting point.
Read: Raspberry Pi Robot Doly
Raspberry Pi Pico Cat Food Dispenser
If you have cats to take care of, you might want to have a little fun and use a Raspberry Pi Pico to create something they can use. Maker Anthony Douglas did just as much when he designed this Pico-powered cat food dispenser.
Why we love it:
We love projects that are practical and this one has a real world use case that makes the effort of building it that much more worth it. You can 3D print the body used in its design and as the dispenser is completely open source.
Read: Raspberry Pi Pico Cat Food Dispenser
Raspberry Pi Smart Vertical Farm
Vertical farming is all about saving space and moving your plants into structures like shelving units. This can make it tricky to manage and care for your plants depending on the scale of your garden. That’s where Tanay Tanay’s Raspberry Pi smart vertical farming project comes in. It uses a Pi along with a variety of sensors to monitor plants and make adjustments to optimize the plant’s environment automatically.
Why we love it:
This project isn’t exclusive to vertical farms but it does make managing them easier. But because it’s so adaptable, you could use a setup like this to monitor any plant and remotely water them using the pump system.
Read: Raspberry Pi Smart Vertical Farm
Raspberry Pi Pico Therapy Timer
Timers are simple concepts but this Pico-powered therapy timer adds an intriguing level of complexity that results in a beautiful end product. Instead of using numbers, the timer’s status is relayed using various colors. According to the maker, Matthias Wandel, the goal was to create something unobtrusive that counselors and therapists could use during sessions.
Why we love it:
The project works great as intended but the effort taken to diffuse the light and construct a wooden case from scratch is just icing on the cake. It even has wooden buttons on the top for adjusting the timer settings.
Read: Raspberry Pi Pico Therapy Timer
Cluster of 32 Raspberry Pis
If there’s one thing that always brings together a classroom, it’s a teacher with plenty of passion to share. Mike Reed is a leading example of such a character as demonstrated in his amazing Raspberry Pi cluster. This project serves as a learning tool for his tech class in which he teaches programming and other microelectronics fundamentals.
Why we love it:
This project might be used as a learning tool but it is a learning tool itself. Reed’s clusters are neatly designed and executed just as well. We love the effort put into making these clusters and the features he’s implemented to make his job as a teacher that much easier.
Read: Cluster of 32 Raspberry Pis
Raspberry Pi Translates Speech to Sign Language with Robotic Hand
The Raspberry Pi is a great tool for those looking to bridge communication gaps. But while oftentimes that means using a Pi to make an adapter of sorts, this communication gap is bridged between people. Prabhjot Singh is using a Raspberry Pi to serve as a translation platform called Deaf Link that enables deaf people to communicate with hearing people using a robotic hand to produce sign language.
Why we love it:
We love any project that makes life easier and this project is a great example of just that. The hearing person doesn’t even need to know sign language at all in order to use the machine. A Raspberry Pi is responsible for handling the sign language interpretation entirely.
Read: Raspberry Pi Translates Speech to Sign Language
Raspberry Pi 5 Projects
The Raspberry Pi 5 is finally available and we’ve already got a few projects and demos that push the new board to its limits. If you want to see what the new Pi is capable of, this is a great look at what it can accomplish.
Recalbox Emulation Tested
LeePSPVideo got his hands on the Pi 5 early and wanted to see how well it handled Recalbox. The Pi 5 has some notable performance advantages over the Pi 4 and it’s already looking like a great retro gaming platform. There are a few factors to consider like temperature and what display you’re outputting to when it comes to tweaking performance.
Read: Recalbox Emulation Tested
Raspberry Pi 5 Emulates Nintendo GameCube and Wii
Raspberry Pis in the past have been unable to successfully emulate the Nintendo GameCube and Wii platforms. That seems to have changed as demonstrated by LeePSPVideo’s foray into running Dolphin on the Raspberry Pi 5. Check out this video if you want to see how well it performs with the new specs.
Read: Raspberry Pi 5 Emulates Nintendo GameCube and Wii
Raspberry Pi 5 Team Talk RP1
One of the most interesting parts of the Raspberry Pi 5’s design is its use of the RP1 chip. The story of its development dates back to 2015 and is definitely worth learning about if you’re a fan of the Raspberry Pi and excited about the new board.
Read: Raspberry Pi 5 Team Talk RP1
Raspberry Pi 5 Compatible OS 'Bookworm' Officially Released
A new board requires a new OS and that’s what we got with the release of Bookworm. This operating system is necessary if you want to use the new Raspberry Pi 5. It’s flashed using Raspberry Pi Imager just the same as previous Raspberry Pi OS editions.
Read: Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm Officially Released
Tom's Hardware Projects
After spending so much time looking through these amazing projects, we often become inspired ourselves. Here’s a look at the latest Raspberry Pi tutorials to come from the team here at Tom’s Hardware over the last month.
Overclocking Raspberry Pi 5 to 3 GHz
The new Raspberry Pi has plenty of specs to get excited about but Les is already pushing the board to its limits. If you want to know more about overclocking the Raspberry Pi 5, check this out and see what it’s capable of.
Read: Overclocking Raspberry Pi 5 to 3 GHz
How to Set Up a Headless Raspberry Pi 5
If you want to get off the ground with a Raspberry Pi, you’ll need to set it up. But what if you don’t have a monitor? Running a Pi without a display is known as operating a headless system. Here’s our guide on how you can set up a headless Raspberry Pi 5 put together by Editor in Chief Avram Piltch.
Read: How to Set Up a Headless Raspberry Pi 5
How to Emulate PlayStation 2 on the Raspberry Pi 5
Have you been looking for an SBC capable of emulating the PlayStation 2? It turns out the Raspberry Pi 5 has got what it takes and Les has already put a guide together to show us how to set it up. Check it out to see what you need to do in order to start gaming on this classic platform.
