If you’ve ever wanted to know more about machine learning, or if you want to help you learners get started with machine learning, then our new free projects are for you!

Spoiler alert: we won’t show you how to build your own Terminator. Trust us, it’s for the best.

Machine learning in education

When we hosted Scratch Conference Europe this summer, machine learning was the talk of the town: all of the machine learning talks and workshops were full with educators eager to learn more and find out how to teach machine learning. So this is the perfect time to bring some free machine learning resources to our projects site!

Smart classroom assistant

Smart classroom assistant is about creating your own virtual smart devices. You will create a machine learning model that recognises text commands, such as “fan on”, “Turn on my fan”, or my personal favourite, “It’s roasting in here!”.

In the project, you will be guided through setting up commands for a desk fan and lamp, but you could pick all sorts of virtual devices — and you can even try setting up a real one! What will you choose?

Journey to school

Journey to school lets you become a psychic! Well, not exactly — but you will be able to predict how your friends travel from A to B.

By doing a survey and collecting lots of information from your friends about how they travel around, you can train the computer to look for patterns in the numbers and predict how your friends travel between places. When you have perfected your machine learning model, you can try using it in Scratch too!

Alien language

Did you ever make up your own secret language that only you understood? Just me? Well, in the Alien language project you can teach your computer to understand your made-up words. You can record lots of examples to teach it to understand ‘left’ and ‘right’ and then use your model in Scratch to move a character with your voice!

Train your model to recognise as many sounds as you like, and then create games where the characters are voice-controlled!

Did you like it?

In the Did you like it? project, you create a character in Scratch that will recognise whether you enjoyed something or not, based on what you type. You will train your character by giving it some examples of positive and negative comments, then watch it determine how you are feeling. Once you have mastered that, you can train it to reply, or to recognise other types of messages too. Soon enough, you will have made your very own sentiment analysis tool!

More machine learning resources

We’d like to extend a massive thank you to Dale from Machine Learning for Kids for his help with bringing these projects to our projects site. Machine Learning for Kids is a fantastic website for finding out more about machine learning, and it has loads more great projects for you to try, so make sure you check it out!

The post Try our new free machine learning projects for Scratch appeared first on reallifecam.

Scratch 3

Scratch 3 was released in January this year, and since then we and the Scratch team have put lots of work into creating an offline version for 78电影网 Pi.

The new version of Scratch has a significantly improved interface and better functionality compared to previous versions. These improvements come at the cost of needing more processing power to run. Luckily, 78电影网 Pi 4 has delivered just that, and with the software improvements in the newest version of 78电影网 Pi OS, Buster, we can now deliver a reliable Scratch 3 /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm on our computer.

Coding for kids in Scratch

Your kids can learn to code in Scratch with our free learning paths. These paths guide them to make fun projects and gain independence as coders and makers.

• Introduction to Scratch: sprites, scripts, and loops: This path is for beginners and introduces Scratch and coding concepts step by step as they make animations, a game, an app, and a book
• More Scratch: broadcasts, decisions, and variables: On this path, kids can build on the skills they’ve learning in the Intro path to take their Scratch creations further as they code apps, games, and simulations
• Further Scratch: clones, my blocks, and boolean logic: On this path, young coders take advantage of all the tools in Scratch to code a range of different programs including simulations, games, and computer-generated art

Scratch and electronics with a 78电影网 Pi computer

If you think your kids would like to learn how to build physical projects they can program in Scratch, then take a look at our Physical 78电影网 with Scratch and 78电影网 Pi path. In these six projects, your young people will learn how to use Scratch on a 78电影网 Pi computer to control LEDs, buttons, and buzzers to make interactive games, displays, and instruments.

Which 78电影网 Pi can I use?

Scratch 3 needs at least 1GB of RAM to run, and we recommend a 78电影网 Pi 4 with at least 2GB RAM. While you can run Scratch 3 on a 78电影网 Pi 2, 3, 3B+, or a 78电影网 4 with 1GB RAM, performance on these models is reduced, and depending on what other software you run at the same time, Scratch 3 may fail to start due to lack of memory.

The Scratch team is working to reduce the memory requirements of Scratch 3, so we will hopefully see improvements to this soon.

How to install Scratch 3

You can only install Scratch 3 on Raspbian Buster and on newer 78电影网 Pi OS versions.

First, update 78电影网 Pi OS!

• If you’ve yet to upgrade to Raspbian Buster, we recommend installing a fresh version of 78电影网 Pi OS onto your SD card instead of upgrading from your current version.
• If you’re already using 78电影网 Pi OS, but you’re not sure your running the latest version, update your OS by following this tutorial:

Once you’re running the latest version of 78电影网 Pi OS, you can install Scratch 3 either using the Recommended Software application or apt on the terminal.

How to install Scratch 3 using the Recommended Software app

Open up the menu, click on Preferences > Recommended Software, and then select Scratch 3 and click on OK.

How to install Scratch 3 using the terminal

Open a terminal window, and type in and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install scratch3

What can I do with Scratch 3 and 78电影网 Pi?

Scratch 3 Desktop for Raspbian comes with new extensions to allow you to control the GPIO pins and Sense HAT with Scratch code!

GPIO extension

GPIO extension is a replacement for the existing extension in Scratch 2. Its layout and functionality is very similar, so you can use it as a drop-in replacement.

The GPIO extension gives you the flexibility to connect and control a whole host of electronic devices.

Simple Electronics extension

If you are looking to add something simple, like an LED or button controller for a game, you should find the new Simple Electronics extension easier to use than the GPIO extension. The Simple Electronics extension is the first version of a beginner-friendly extension for interacting with 78电影网 Pi’s GPIO pins. Taking lessons from the implementation of gpiozero for Python, this new extension provides a simpler way of using electronic components: currently buttons and LEDs.

In this example, an LED connected to GPIO pin 17 is controlled by a button connected between pin 2 and GND.

Sense HAT extension

We’ve improved the Sense HAT extension to take advantage of new features in Scratch 3, and the updated version of the extension also introduces a number of new blocks to allow you to:

• Sense tilting, shaking, and orientation
• Use the joystick
• Measure temperature, pressure, and humidity
• Display text, characters, and patterns on the LED matrix

micro:bit and LEGO extensions

The micro:bit and LEGO extensions will become available later on Scratch 3 Desktop. This is because Scratch Link, the software which allows Scratch to talk to Bluetooth devices, is not yet available for Linux-type operating systems like Raspbian. A version of Scratch Link for Raspbian is part of our plans but, as yet, we don’t have a release date.

A round of thanks

It has been a long ambition of both the Scratch and 78电影网 Pi teams to have Scratch 3 running on 78电影网 Pi, and it’s amazing to see it released!

A big thank you to 78电影网 Pi engineer Simon Long for building and packaging Scratch 3, and to the Scratch team for their support in getting over some of the problems we faced along the way.

The post Scratch 3 Desktop for 78电影网 Pi OS on 78电影网 Pi appeared first on reallifecam.

In this lesson, students create a library app for their books. This will store information about their book collection and allow them to display, manipulate, and search their collection. You will show students how to use text files in their programs that act as a database.

The project will give your students practical examples of database terminology and hands-on /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm working with persistent data. It gives opportunities for students to define and gain concrete /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm with key database concepts using a language they are familiar with. The script that accompanies this activity can be adapted to suit your students’ /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm and competency.

This ready-to-go software project can be used alongside approaches such as PRIMM or pair programming, or as a worked example to engage your students in programming with persistent data.

What makes a database?

Start by asking the students why we need databases and what they are: do they ever feel unorganised? Life can get complicated, and there is so much to keep track of, the raw data required can be overwhelming. How can we use 78电影网 to solve this problem? If only there was a way of organising and accessing data that would let us get it out of our head. Databases are a way of organising the data we care about, so that we can easily access it and use it to make our lives easier.

Then explain that in this lesson the students will create a database, using Python and a text file. The example I show students is a personal library app that keeps track of which books I own and where I keep them. I have also run this lesson and allowed the students pick their own items to keep track of — it just involves a little more planning time at the end. Split the class up into pairs; have each of them discuss and select five pieces of data about a book (or their own item) they would like to track in a database. They should also consider which type of data each of them is. Give them five minutes to discuss and select some data to track.

Databases are organised collections of data, and this allows them to be displayed, maintained, and searched easily. Our database will have one table — effectively just like a spreadsheet table. The headings on each of the columns are the fields: the individual pieces of data we want to store about the books in our collection. The information about a single book are called its attributes and are stored together in one record, which would be a single row in our database table. To make it easier to search and sort our database, we should also select a primary key: one field that will be unique for each book. Sometimes one of the fields we are already storing works for this purpose; if not, then the database will create an ID number that it uses to uniquely identify each record.

Create a library application

Pull the class back together and ask a few groups about the data they selected to track. Make sure they have chosen appropriate data types. Ask some if they can find any of the fields that would be a primary key; the answer will most likely be no. The ISBN could work, but for our simple application, having to type in a 10- or 13-digit number just to use for an ID would be overkill. In our database, we are going to generate our own IDs.

The requirements for our database are that it can do the following things: save data to a file, read data from that file, create new books, display our full database, allow the user to enter a search term, and display a list of relevant results based on that term. We can decompose the problem into the following steps:

• Set up our structures
• Create a record
• Save the data to the database file
• Read from the database file
• Display the database to the user
• Allow the user to search the database
• Display the results

Have the class log in and power up Python. If they are doing this locally, have them create a new folder to hold this project. We will be interacting with external files and so having them in the same folder avoids confusion with file locations and paths. They should then load up a new Python file. To start, download the starter file from the link provided. Each student should make a copy of this file. At first, I have them examine the code, and then get them to run it. Using concepts from PRIMM, I get them to print certain messages when a menu option is selected. This can be a great exemplar for making a menu in any application they are developing. This will be the skeleton of our database app: giving them a starter file can help ease some cognitive load from students.

Have them examine the variables and make guesses about what they are used for.

• current_ID – a variable to count up as we create records, this will be our primary key
• new_additions – a list to hold any new records we make while our code is running, before we save them to the file
• filename – the name of the database file we will be using
• fields – a list of our fields, so that our dictionaries can be aligned with our text file
• data – a list that will hold all of the data from the database, so that we can search and display it without having to read the file every time

Create the first record

We are going to use dictionaries to store our records. They reference their elements using keys instead of indices, which fit our database fields nicely. We are going to generate our own IDs. Each of these must be unique, so a variable is needed that we can add to as we make our records. This is a user-focused application, so let’s make it so our user can input the data for the first book. The strings, in quotes, on the left of the colon, are the keys (the names of our fields) and the data on the right is the stored value, in our case whatever the user inputs in response to our appropriate prompts. We finish this part of by adding the record to the file, incrementing the current ID, and then displaying a useful feedback message to the user to say their record has been created successfully. Your students should now save their code and run it to make sure there aren’t any syntax errors.

You could make use of pair programming, with carefully selected pairs taking it in turns in the driver and navigator roles. You could also offer differing levels of scaffolding: providing some of the code and asking them to modify it based on given requirements.

How to use the code in your class

To complete the project, your students can add functionality to save their data to a CSV file, read from a database file, and allow users to search the database. The code for the whole project is available at helloworld.cc/database.

An example of the code

You may want to give your students the entire piece of code. They can investigate and modify it to their own purpose. You can also lead them through it, having them follow you as you demonstrate how an expert constructs a piece of software. I have done both to great effect. Let me know how your classes get on! Get in touch at [email protected]

Hello World issue 9

The brand-new issue of Hello World is out today, and available right now as a free PDF download from the Hello World website.

UK-based educators can also sign up to receive Hello World as printed magazine FOR FREE, direct to their door. And those outside the UK, educator or not, can subscribe to receive new digital issues of Hello World in their inbox on the day of release.

The post How to build databases using Python and text files | Hello World #9 appeared first on reallifecam.

Try out the Wolfram Language today, available as a free download for your 78电影网 Pi (download details are below).

The Wolfram Language

The Wolfram language is particularly good at retrieving and working with data, like natural language and geographic information, and at producing visual representations with an impressively small amount of code. The language does a lot of the heavy lifting for you and is a great way to let young learners in particular work with data to quickly produce real results.

If you’d like to learn more about the Wolfram Language on the 78电影网 Pi, check out this great blog post written by Lucy, Editor of The MagPi magazine!

Weather dashboard

My favourite of the new projects is the weather dashboard which, in a few quick steps, teaches you to create this shiny-looking widget that takes the user’s location, finds their nearest major city, and gets current weather data for it. I tried this out with my own CoderDojo club and it got a very positive reception, even if Dublin weather usually does report rain!

Coin and dice

The coin and dice project shows you how to create a coin toss and dice roller that you can use to move your favourite board game into the digital age. It also introduces you to creating interfaces and controls for your projects, choosing random outcomes, and displaying images with the Wolfram Language.

Day and night

In the day and night tracker project, you create a program that gives you a real-time view of where the sun is up right now and lets you check whether it’s day or night time in a particular country. This is not only a pretty cool way to learn about things like time zones, but also shows you how to use geographic data and create an interactive /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm in the Wolfram Language.

Sentimental 8-ball

In Sentimental 8-Ball, you create a Magic 8-Ball that picks its answers based on how positive or negative the mood of the user’s question seems. In doing so, you learn to work with lists and use the power of sentiment analysis in the Wolfram Language.

Face swap

This fun project lets you take a photo of you and your friend and have the Wolfram Language identify and swap your faces! Perfect for updating your profile photo, and also a great way to learn about functions and lists!

More Wolfram Mathematica projects

That’s only half of the selection of great new projects we’ve got for you! Go check them out, along with all the other Wolfram Language projects on our projects site.

Download the Wolfram Language and Mathematica to your 78电影网 Pi

Mathematica and the Wolfram Language are included as part of NOOBS, or you can download them to Raspbian on your 78电影网 Pi for free by entering the following commands into a terminal window and pressing Enter after each:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wolfram-engine

The post New Wolfram Mathematica free resources for your 78电影网 Pi appeared first on reallifecam.

Senior 78电影网 Manager Oliver Quinlan chats to participants at Coolest Projects 2018

We do our 78电影网 work by:

• Visiting clubs, Dojos, and events, seeing how they run, and talking to the adults and young people involved
• Running surveys to get feedback on how people are helping young people learn
• Testing new approaches and resources with groups of clubs and Dojos to try different ways which might help to engage more young people or help them learn more effectively

Over the last few months, we’ve been running lots of 78电影网 projects and gained some fascinating insights into how young people are engaging with digital making. As well as using these findings to shape our education work, we also publish what we find, for free, over on our 78电影网 page.

How do children tackle digital making projects?

We found that making ambitious digital projects is a careful balance between ideas, technology, and skills. Using this new understanding, we will help children and the adults that support them plan a process for exploring open-ended projects.

Coolest Projects USA 2018

For this piece of 78电影网, we interviewed children and young people at last year’s Coolest Projects International and Coolest Projects UK , asking questions about the kinds of projects they made and how they created them. We found that the challenge they face is finding a balance between three things: the ideas and problems they want to address, the technologies they have access to, and their skills. Different children approached their projects in different ways, some starting with the technology they had access to, others starting with an idea or with a problem they wanted to solve.

Achieving big ambitions with the technology you have to hand while also learning the skills you need can be tricky. We’re planning to develop more resources to help young people with this.

78电影网 Assistant Lucia Florianova learns about Rebel Girls at Coolest Projects International 2018

We also found out a lot about the power of seeing other children’s projects, what children learn, and the confidence they develop in presenting their projects at these events. Alongside our analysis, we’ve put together some case studies of the teams we interviewed, so people can read in-depth about their projects and the stories of how they created them.

Who comes to Code Club?

In another 78电影网 project, we found that Code Clubs in schools are often diverse and cater well for the communities the schools serve; Code Club is not an exclusive club, but something for everyone.

Code Clubs are run by volunteers in all sorts of schools, libraries, and other venues across the world; we know a lot about the spaces the clubs take place in and the volunteers who run them, but less about the children who choose to take part. We’ve started to explore this through structured visits to clubs in a sample of schools across the West Midlands in England, interviewing teachers about the groups of children in their club. We knew Code Clubs were reaching schools that cater for a whole range of communities, and the evidence of this project suggests that the children who attend the Code Club in those schools come from a range of backgrounds themselves.

Photo c/o Dave Bird — thanks, Dave!

We found that in these primary schools, children were motivated to join Code Club more because the club is fun rather than because the children see themselves as people who are programmers. This is partly because adults set up Code Clubs with an emphasis on fun: although children are learning, they are not perceiving Code Club as an academic activity linked with school work. Our project also showed us how Code Clubs fit in with the other after-school clubs in schools, and that children often choose Code Club as part of a menu of after-school clubs.

Visitors to Pi Towers 78电影网 Jam get hands-on with coding

In the last few months we’ve also published insights into how 78电影网 Pi Certified Educators are using their training in schools, and into how schools are using 78电影网 Pi computers. You can find our reports on all of these topics over at our 78电影网 page.

Thanks to all the volunteers, educators, and young people who are finding time to help us with their 78电影网. If you’re involved in any of our education programmes and want to take part in a 78电影网 project, or if you are doing your own 78电影网 into 78电影网 education and want to start a conversation, then reach out to us via 78电影网@亂倫近親相姦中文字幕.org.

The post What we are learning about learning appeared first on reallifecam.

On 2 January, MIT released the latest version of their incredible visual programming language: Scratch 3!

Scratch 3 is here

We love Scratch — it’s the perfect starting point for young people who want to try coding, and we’re offering a huge variety of free Scratch project guides for all interests and coding abilities.

Scratch 3 introduces a brand-new look and feel. The most obvious change is that the stage is now on the right-hand side; there are new paint and sound editing tools; new types of code blocks; and the blocks are now larger and easier to read.

To help you and your young learners navigate the new Scratch 3 interface, we’ve created a free, printable Scratch 3 poster:

Perhaps the biggest news is that Scratch 3 also works on tablets, opening up coding to many children who don’t have access to a computer.

We’ve upgraded!

We want to make this a smooth transition for all of you who rely on our free project resources, whether that be at a Code Club, CoderDojo, 78电影网 Jam, or at home, so we’ve been busy upgrading our resources to work with Scratch 3.

Scratch 3 versions of all projects in the Code Club Scratch Modules 1–3 and the CoderDojo Scratch Sushi Cards are already live!

The upgrading process also was a chance for us to review our resources to make sure they are the best they can be; as part of this, we’ve introduced a number of improvements, such as simplified layouts, better hints, and better print-outs.

And we know that for many people, starting to use Scratch 3 is not simple, or not even possible yet, so we are committed to providing support for both Scratch 2 and 3 for the next 12 months.

We are really pleased with how our newly polished Scratch projects turned out, and we hope you are too!

What’s to come

Over the coming months, we’ll update the rest of our Scratch projects. Meanwhile, our amazing volunteer translators will begin the process of translating the upgraded projects.

Brand-new projects that take advantage of some of Scratch 3’s new features are also in the pipeline!

Scratch 3 on Pi

Another reason for ensuring we support both Scratch 2 and 3 is that, at the moment, there is no offline, installable version of Scratch 3 for 78电影网 Pi. Rest assured that this is something we are working on!

The creation of Scratch 3 for 78电影网 Pi will be a two-step process: first we’ll support MIT with their optimisation of Scratch 3 to make sure it delivers the best performance possible on a range of devices; once that work is complete, we’ll create an offline build of Scratch 3 for 78电影网 Pi, including new extensions for the GPIO pins and the Sense HAT.

Make sure you’re following us on Twitter and Facebook, as we’ll be announcing more information on this in the coming months!

The post Scratch 3, and upgrading our free resources appeared first on reallifecam.

That's a wrap on #Picademy North America 2018! We welcomed over 300 educators in Denver, Jersey City, Atlanta and Seattle to the @78电影网_Pi community. Congrats and go forth on your digital making journey! 😀🙌 pic.twitter.com/aMyHr2KkuL

— Drew (@baseandbreak) August 27, 2018

Picademy North America

Picademy is a free, two-day training program that helps educators jump start their digital making journey. On day one, educators explore digital making with the 78电影网 Pi computer: blinking LEDs, taking pictures, making motors spin, sensing their environment, and composing music. On day two, they take what they’ve learned from these /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sms and collaborate with a team to design and build their own real world project.

Big interest

We received over 1400 applications for this year’s program, a 40% increase from last year. This enormous interest came from educators in North America and across the globe; we received applications from 49 different U.S. States and 20 countries. And it’s not just classroom teachers either. More than half of our applicants worked outside of a traditional classroom environment, as librarians, after-school providers, teacher trainers, museum educators, and technology coordinators. Out of this pool, we accepted 313 educators to our Picademy 2018 workshops in Denver, Jersey City, Atlanta, and Seattle.

Big impact

We want to make sure that the work we do is having the impact we we intend, so we ask educators who come to Picademy about their skills, /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm, and confidence before they participate in the program and afterwards. Before Picademy, only 13% said they felt confident using using a 78电影网 Pi computer. After attending, this number rose significantly, with 78% now confident using 78电影网 Pi. This increase in confidence matched their sense of professional growth: the majority of educators said that learning new content and gaining new skills were the most memorable parts of their Picademy /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm.

We also had 100% of attendees indicate that they would recommend Picademy to a colleague, and 70% report that they are very likely to share their learnings with fellow educators. This means an even greater number of educators, those who work alongside 78电影网 Pi Certified Educators, will hopefully be impacted by Picademy workshop offerings.

“Picademy was such an engaging and hands-on /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm. Every workshop and project was practical, tangible and most importantly, fun” — Amanda Valledor, Boston, MA

Next steps

What do educators go on to accomplish after Picademy? We’re actively gathering this data as we follow up with our certified educators, but based on feedback surveys we know that 58% of this season’s attendees are interested in starting a Code Club or CoderDojo in their community. We also saw that over 70% of educators are interested in leading a 78电影网 Pi event or training; this could mean a 78电影网 Jam, an educator workshop, or a 78电影网 Pi-themed summer camp. Our team will continue to support each and every 78电影网 Pi Certified Educator as they continue on their digital making journey.

Thank you @78电影网_Pi for allowing each of us to come and get “debugged”, rewrite our “code”, and “program” our future moves as educators! #picademy #亂倫近親相姦中文字幕 #picademyseattle #edtech @iluvteaching72 @MrsNatto pic.twitter.com/37jMYDZThF

— Carrie Northcott (@CarrieNorthcott) August 11, 2018

Special thanks to Dana and everyone else who helped to lead an awesome Picademy program this season. If you’d like to take a deeper dive, feel free to explore all of our data and findings in the Picademy North America 2018 Report.

The post Picademy North America 2018: That’s a Wrap! appeared first on reallifecam.

New Mu

Mu is designed to be as user-friendly and as helpful as possible for new Python programmers, presenting just the tools that are useful, such as:

• Syntax highlighting
• Automatic indentation
• In-built help
• Code checking
• Debugging

Great for new programmers

Mu is intended to be not the only Python IDE you’ll ever need, but the first one — the editor that helps you start your coding journey, but not necessarily the one you finish it with. So when you’re ready, you will have the skills and confidence to move on to using a more advanced Python IDE.

You can use Mu in a number of modes; modes make working with Mu easier by only presenting the options most relevant to what you’re using Mu for:

• Python 3 programming
• Programming a micro:bit
• Creating games using Pygame Zero
• Working with Adafruit’s Circuit range of boards

Available now

Mu version 1.0 is available now for Windows, macOS, Linux, and the 78电影网 Pi’s official operating system Raspbian! And to help new Python programmers get started, we have created a guide to Getting Started with Mu for all these operating systems.

Mu is the brainchild of Nicholas Tollervey, who has worked tirelessly to create Mu. I recently met up with him and some of the Mu team at the world’s first Mu-“moot” to celebrate this release:

https://twitter.com/ntoll/status/1019297680294645760

One of the inspirations for Mu was the keynote presentation at EuroPython 2015 given by 78电影网 Pi’s Carrie Anne Philbin. She talked about the barriers to children getting started with Python, including the lack of an suitably easy-to-use IDE:

78电影网 Pi has provided support for the project, helping to take Mu from its first implementation as a micro:bit programming tool to a general-purpose and simple-to-use Python editor and IDE!

You can find installation instructions as well as tutorials on Mu’s website.

The post Mu, a new Python IDE for beginners appeared first on reallifecam.

Right now, we’re working on an online project pathway to support you with all your high-altitude balloon (HAB) flight activities, whether you run them with students or as a hobby. We’ll release the resources later in the year, but in the meantime we have some exciting new HAB software to share with you!

Skycademy and early HAB software

Over the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to conduct several high-altitude balloon (HAB) flights and to help educators who wanted to do HAB projects with learners. In the /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm’s Skycademy programme, supported by UKHAS members, in particular Dave Akerman, we’ve trained more than 50 teachers to successfully launch near-space missions with their students.

Whenever I advise people who are planning a HAB mission, I tell them that the separate elements actually aren’t that complicated. The difficulty lies in juggling them all at the same time to successfully launch, track, and recover your balloon.

Over the years, some excellent tools and software packages have been developed to help with HAB launches. Dave Akerman’s Pi In The Sky (PITS) software gave beginners the chance to control their first payloads: you enter your own specs into a configuration file, and the software, written in C, handles the rest. Dave’s Long Range (LoRa) gateway software then tracks the payload, receiving balloon data and plotting the flight’s trajectory on a real-time map.

Dave at a Skycademy event

These tools, while useful, present two challenges to the novice HAB enthusiast:

• Exposing and adapting the workings of the software is challenging for novice learners, given that it is written in C
• The existing tracking software and tools are fragmented: one application received LoRa signals; another received radioteletype (RTTY) data; photos were received and had to be manually opened elsewhere; and so on

Introducing Pytrack and SkyGate

Making ballooning as accessible as possible is something we’ve been keen to do since we first got involved in 2015. So I’m delighted to reveal that over the past year, we’ve worked with Dave to produce two new applications to support HAB activities!

Pytrack

Pytrack is a Python implementation of Dave’s original PITS software, and it offers several advantages:

• Learners can create their own tracker in a simpler programming language, rather than simply configuring the existing software
• The core mechanics of the tracker are exposed for the learner to understand, but complex details are abstracted away
• Learners can integrate the technology with standard Python libraries and existing projects
• Pytrack is modular, allowing learners to experiment with underlying radio components

SkyGate

After our last Skycademy event, I started to look for a way to make tracking a payload in flight easier. For Skycademy, we made a hacky tracking box using a Pi, a 7” screen, and a very rough GUI app that I wrote in a hurry lovingly toiled over.

Since then, we have gone on to develop SkyGate, a complete tracking application which runs on a Pi and fits nicely on a 7” screen. It brings together all the tracking functionalities into one intuitive application:

• Live tunable LoRa reception and decoding
• Live tunable RTTY reception and decoding (with compatible USB SDR)
• Image reception and previewing
• GPS tracking to report your location (when using compatible GPS USB dongle)
• Data, images, and GPS upload functionality to HabHub tracking site
• An Overview tab presenting a high-level summary and bearing to payload
• Full customisation via the Settings tab

You can get involved!

We would love HAB enthusiasts to test and experiment with both Pytrack and SkyGate, and to give us feedback. Your input will really help us to write the full guide that we’ll release later this year.

To get started, install both programmes using your command prompt/terminal.

For your payload, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pytrack

And your receiver, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-skygate

Follow this guide to start using Pytrack, and read this overview on SkyGate and what you’ll need for a tracking box. To give us your feedback, please raise issues on the respective GitHub repos: for Pytrack here, and for SkyGate here.

We’ve developed these software packages to make launching and tracking a HAB payload easier and more flexible, and we hope you’ll think we’ve succeeded.

Happy ballooning!

Disclaimer: each country has its own laws regarding HAB launches and radio transmissions in their airspace. Before you attempt to carry out your own HAB flight, you need to ensure you have permission and are complying with all local laws.

The post New software to get you started with high-altitude ballooning appeared first on reallifecam.

United Nations Sustainable Goals

The past couple of weeks in our Innovation Lab class, our teacher, Mr Aviles, has challenged us students to design a project that helps solve one of the United Nations Sustainable Goals. We chose Climate Action. Innovation Lab is a class that gives students the opportunity to learn about where the crossroads of technology, the environment, and entrepreneurship meet. Everyone takes their own paths in innovation and learns about the environment using project-based learning.

78电影网 Pi Oracle Weather Station

For our climate change challenge, we decided to build a 78电影网 Pi Oracle Weather Station. Tackling the issues of climate change in a way that helps our community stood out to us because we knew with the help of this weather station we can send the local data to farmers and fishermen in town. Recent changes in climate have been affecting farmers’ crops. Unexpected rain, heat, and other unusual weather patterns can completely destabilize the natural growth of the plants and destroy their crops altogether. The amount of labour output needed by farmers has also significantly increased, forcing farmers to grow more food on less resources. By using our 78电影网 Pi Oracle Weather Station to alert local farmers, they can be more prepared and aware of the weather, leading to better crops and safe boating.

Growing teamwork and coding skills

The process of setting up our weather station was fun and simple. 78电影网 Pi made the instructions very easy to understand and read, which was very helpful for our team who had little /羞辱/调教/捆绑/束缚sm in coding or physical 78电影网. We enjoyed working together as a team and were happy to be growing our teamwork skills.

Once we constructed and coded the weather station, we learned that we needed to support the station with PVC pipes. After we completed these steps, we brought the weather station up to the roof of the school and began collecting data. Our information is currently being sent to the Initial State dashboard so that we can share the information with anyone interested. This information will also be recorded and seen by other schools, businesses, and others from around the world who are using the weather station. For example, we can see the weather in countries such as France, Greece and Italy.

78电影网 Pi allows us to build these amazing projects that help us to enjoy coding and physical 78电影网 in a fun, engaging, and impactful way. We picked climate change because we care about our community and would like to make a substantial contribution to our town, Fair Haven, New Jersey. It is not every day that kids are given these kinds of opportunities, and we are very lucky and grateful to go to a school and learn from a teacher where these opportunities are given to us. Thanks, Mr Aviles!

To see more awesome projects by Mr Avile’s class, you can keep up with him on his blog and follow him on Twitter.

The post Tackling climate change and helping the community appeared first on reallifecam.