Tuesday, August 25, 2015

9th Egham Jam – Show and Tell Competition – Prizes donated by Innovation in Education


The good news keeps in coming

Yesterday another pack of prizes arrived in the post for the next Egham Raspberry Jam Show and Tell Competition.  http://eghamjam9.eventbrite.com to register to attend and if you wish to have a chance of winning the prizes to bring along your Project to Show off.

Two (2) PiTrol kits from Innovation in Education were waiting fro me.
These are great kits as they allow you to build your own game controller with the instructions giving step by step details on how to solder it and then a snake game is also provided that works with the controller directly.

Kit of parts
Finished PiTrol


Nevil Hunt is the lead person at Innovation in Education and I have had the pleasure of meeting him at a few Egham Jams where he has come along with the PiTrol, 7 Segments of Pi and PiDapter (link from PiTrol site)

7 Segments of Pi is another simple idea that really captures the imagination. As the name states it is a large 7 segment display and button that you solder from a kit and then code is provided to play a game  

The PiDaptor allows you to connect 2 PiTrols to the one Raspberry Pi.

Each of these kits is great for learning to solder and with the provided code gives the owner the ability to understand how to read inputs from the GPIO pins and use it to play games.  Who doesn't want to play games on their Raspberry Pi.

In the case of The PiTrol prize once it has been soldered up I'd expect it would be possible to then get the controller to work with the many game emulators out there and possibly with the excellent RetroPi emulation system.

The Prize Pool is getting bigger and I'm still hoping to add a few more before the event.


Friday, August 14, 2015

9th Egham Jam – Show and Tell Competition – Prizes donated by Pimoroni


I really love the postal service as today another package arrived with prizes for the Show and Tell competition at the next Egham Jam on the 11th October.

This time from wonderful people at Pimoroni.
If you've been around the Raspberry Pi world for any amount of time the Pimoroni name will have popped up on your radar.

Assuming my facts are correct they are responsible for
Raspberry Pi Logo - yes that one.
Pibow Rainbow Case and now in many other colour variations
Unicorn Hat RGB LED matrix
Picade - Complete kit to make your own mini arcade machine

They also support the Picademy work and are very active in supporting the community and provide detailed tutorials. http://learn.pimoroni.com/

Specifically for the Show and Tell Competition they have provided 2 'Kit for the Book' sets

Kit for Adventures in Raspberry Pi by Carrie Anne Philbin (Book Link)
Kit for Adventures in Minecraft by David Whale and Martin O'Hanlon (Book Link)


Along with an Explorer Hat Pro and Explorer Hat Pro Parts Kit  for more fun making and lovely stickers. My favourite is 'I broke it better'

So if you have these books are considering getting them these kits include all the components and parts you need to make full use of the electronics based projects that are provided in the books.


With the Eben Upton signed cases from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Deluxe Snap Rovers from Cyntech and now the Pimoroni  prizes the Prize Pool for the Competition is growing rapidly.

If you wish to enter the competition just have a project to show at the next Egham Jam on the 11th of October.  To attend (either showing or just visiting) please register on the Eventbrite page.  http://eghamjam9.eventbrite.com




Thursday, August 13, 2015

9th Egham Jam – Show and Tell Competition – Prizes donated by Cyntech

Wow!  I’m stunned. Cyntech are amazing.

For the Egham Raspberry Jam on the 11th of October there will be a Show and Tell Competition with all prizes donated and the Cyntech prizes arrived today.

Cyntech have been supporting the Raspberry Pi since the start and are a great place to get your accessories and kits. They are an Adafruit dealer in the UK and also do a full range of parts for making your own projects.  A lot of the products on their website also include details on how to use them.

Cyntech sent a pair of Deluxe Snap Rovers.  Once for each competition category.


These beauties sell for about £80.00 each and are a great introduction to electronics, and robotics.  The circuits just snap together making them really easy to build and adapt.  The kit comes with all the parts and a guide showing how to make a whole range of different circuits.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t shoot lasers, but has the second best thing. It shoots foam discs!

Also, looking at the construction once the guides provided are completed this thing really looks like it could be seriously upgraded with a Raspberry Pi , a PiCamera  and some more LEDs

These kits are far beyond what I had expected and in addition to the already announced Raspberry Pi Official cases signed by Eben Upton the Show and Tell Competition is looking like one well worth winning.

If you have registered already for the Event and haven’t started building there is loads of time. If you’ve not registered then guess what over half the tickets are already gone with 2 months to go.

Registration and more details on the Eventbrite Page: http://eghamjam9.eventbrite.com


Looking forward to seeing all the amazing projects being shown and also seeing these fantastic rovers being built, used and hacked.

Monday, August 10, 2015

9th Egham Raspberry Jam - 11th October 2015

The 9th Egham Raspberry Jam is going to be on the 11th of October.
As always it is free to attend you just have to register on the Eventbrite page.  http://eghamjam9.eventbrite.com

For this Jam we are doing something very special.
We are running a Show and Tell Competition, so bring your projects along for the chance of winning some amazing prizes.
There will be 2 categories.
Under 16
16 and over


We are still finalising the prize pool.
First into the prize bundle is an Eben Upton signed Official Raspberry Pi case.
These have been donated by the Raspberry Pi people and are real collectors items with Eben's signature.


More prizes to be confirmed as we get closer to the Jam.

Really looking forward to seeing the projects on the day.