Thursday, December 27, 2012

Mini Wireless Keyboard/Touchpad and Nano USB Wifi Adaptor that works with Raspberry Pi


As part of my Christmas presents I got a couple of bits to go with my Raspberry Pi.
As I sometimes take the Raspberry Pi out and about I wanted a mini wireless keyboard/touchpad to pack in my box of wires.
I heard good things about the Rii 2.4GHz Wireless Mini PC Keyboard Touchpad so added it to my wish list. I plugged in the dongle to the Raspberry Pi, turned on the keyboard and it worked first time. No problems at all.  I read some comments that the range is very short. I'm getting about 3 metres from it as I haven't tested any further.  Very happy. Keys are big enough for me to use comfortably and the main keys are all in the expected places.  It also has a laser pointer built in if needed.
Also, the extra function keys beyond [F8] are at [FN],1,2,3,4 so you do get the full 12 functions keys but only the first 8 are shown.
The one I received was in a plain white box.

I also got the Edimax EW-7811UN Wireless 802.11b/g/n 150Mbps Nano USB Adaptor.
Using Raspbian it worked first time with no additional drivers required.

With the 2 of these plugged in I have a full functioning compact computer with only the power and HDMI coming from it.

So, when I'm logging in remotely using Xming and Putty I can put the Raspberry Pi where ever there is a spare socket and work away.

I also got  the beautiful Pibow Colour Raspberry Pi Case.  and the Adafruit Pi Cobbler Breakout Kit. So, very happy with the presents.





Note: Links are to Amazon UK stores where mine came from.  My wife has learned that the best thing is for me to email her actual links rather than having me expect her to known what I'm looking for.
One year a link went from being a processor to a couple of wires. luckily she checked with me before buying.





Friday, December 21, 2012

Learning Scratch for CodeClub


I've signed up to run a CodeClub at my kids school from  January.
Before I received the official course work I thought it might be a good idea to actually try and make something with Scratch. So, I put together a simplistic shooter.

You can see it and download it from the Scratch Site.
Dragon vs The Ghosts
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/winkleink/2847788


You can play the game in a browser as well if you don't want to install Scratch.

The game took about 2 to 3 hours to make using the built in graphics and sounds. With most of that time me just figuring out how to use Scratch.  For those who have experienced Scratch before I'd expect a game like this would take less than 30 minutes.

Also, I just saw that Scratch 2.0 is going into public beta on the 28th of January and that the Raspberry Pi Foundation are supporting work to improve Scratch's performance on the Raspberry Pi.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=26361

It's looking good for Scratch.