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Explorer HAT tricks

fun things to try with your Pimoroni Explorer HAT

Romilly Cocking

If you're

  • a beginner who wants to start monitoring and controlling things with your Raspberry Pi
  • an experienced maker with a newly purchased Pimoroni Explorer HAT
  • an educator looking for fun projects to inspire
  • an inventor needing to prototype your ideas

you should buy this book!

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About

About

About the Book

You'll learn how to

  • configure your Raspberry Pi for use with the Pimoroni Explorer Pro
  • turn the four on-board coloured LEDs on and off
  • use the capacitive touch sensors to control your Pi
  • add push-buttons and specialised LEDs to your projects
  • fade the brightness of LEDs up and down
  • measure voltage, light level and temperatures
  • control electric motors with your Pi

You'll consolidate what you learn through fun projects.

If you have a Pi. the extra hardware will cost about £40.

You don't need to solder.

The programs are written on the Python language. If you don't know Python yet, it's a great way to start learning it!

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Embedded SystemsCrafts and HobbiesEngineering

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Author

About the Author

Romilly Cocking

I'm a long-term lover of computing, robotics and AI.

I wrote my first program in 1958. I'm now semi-retired, but still learning, teaching, programming and building.

Contents

Table of Contents

Preface

  1. About the author

How to have fun with this book

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Get help if you need it
  3. Make sure you are registered!
  4. The Raspberry Pi
  5. Physical computing
  6. The Pimoroni Explorer HAT
  7. How much will the hardware cost?
  8. What skills do you need?
  9. What skills will you learn?
  10. Your choices
  11. A quick note about spelling
  12. A quick preview

Ready, steady, go!

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Prepare your Raspberry Pi
  3. Installing the HAT on the Pi
  4. Enabling interfaces
  5. Use Python 3
  6. Install software
  7. Summary
  8. Next

Hello, explorer!

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Turning an LED on and off from Python
  3. Control an LED from inside a Python program
  4. Blink an LED repeatedly
  5. Red is not the only LED
  6. Summary
  7. Next

Traffic lights project - first version

  1. What’s this about?
  2. UK traffic light sequence
  3. Some new Python features
  4. Defining Python functions
  5. The complete program
  6. Summary
  7. Next

SOS! - send Morse code

  1. What’s this about?
  2. The program
  3. Summary
  4. Next

The touchy Explorer HAT

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Touchpads
  3. Summary
  4. Next

LED to the breadboard

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Breadboards
  3. A quick experiment
  4. Blinking the LED
  5. Blinking program
  6. Touchpad control
  7. Summary
  8. Next

What’s the buzz?

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Two sorts of buzzer
  3. Wiring up the buzzer
  4. Driving the buzzer
  5. Buzzing Morse code
  6. Summary
  7. Next

Traffic lights project - second version

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Summary
  3. Next

Measuring analogue values

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Analogue measurements with the Explorer HAT
  3. Start building a weather station
  4. Measuring light levels with an LDR
  5. Summary
  6. Next

The plot thickens

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Calculating the LDR’s resistance
  3. Measuring light levels
  4. Mu can plot your data!
  5. Summary
  6. Next

Getting pushy

  1. What’s this about?
  2. Wiring up a button
  3. Wiring up the button
  4. Writing the code
  5. Summary
  6. Next

Now you’re motoring

  1. What’s this about?
  2. The motor you’ll use
  3. Controlling motor direction
  4. Summary
  5. Next

Where next?

  1. Support for readers
  2. Next, two favours
  3. Resources for the future

Appendix A

  1. Resistor colour codes
  2. Wiring colours

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