Mini Computers
I’ve recently been looking into a couple of forms of mini computer, for a few purposes. Partly a little bit of computing fun at home, partly for “serious” purposes.
Arduino
The first thing I ordered parts for was from the article How to build a simple Arduino shutter tester. I’ve been thinking of buying parts for some form of shutter tester for a while, and this one seemed better than the sound based versions that are normally around. A small amount on AliExpress later and I’ll have some parts, eventually (as Ethan says, it’ll be a holiday when they arrive).
That’s a bit of programming, a bit of electronics and hopefully I’ll have a useful object, and some fun. Watch this space.
Raspberry Pi
The second one I’m looking at is Raspberry Pis, the almost ubiquitous mini computer I’ve never owned. I’ve been delving into uses, and there are lots, so here’s a few I’m seriously considering.
Pi-Hole
Pi-Hole is an ad-blocker that uses a DNS sink to eliminate ads. It’s rather nifty, removing them on a network wide level. Not too hard to install, and not needing too much to run, I’ve eBayed a second hand RP 2 for this. It may turn into more than just that, if I find some other server/network things to use it for.
Keybow
The Pimoroni Keybow is a mini customisable keyboard. Not sure I’ve got huge uses for it, but it’s a tempting project, there’s a whole set of tutorials on building, then simple and advanced programming. Out of stock at the moment, but we’ll see if/when it comes back in.
Cluster
I stumbled on Five years of Raspberry Pi clusters when looking into the above. There’s a load of good articles linked to in there, and it’s somewhat inspiring. Bit of a mad idea, but might be a fun (and relatively cheap) way to play around with clustering.
That also leads to the author’s other/main project OpenFaaS. I’ve dealt a little with serverless in work, but interesting to see a non-vendor specific version I could potentially try out at home.
It also led me to Cluster HAT. A more traditional cluster in the supercomputer vein. Different purposes but also intriguing. Likely cheaper too, but there seems to be some difficulty getting hold of the required components. That said I think I can see less use for this than a Kubernetes cluster.
Cheap Computer
It wouldn’t be powerful, but the RPi 4 one would be a cheap computer. With the right screen etc. it could even be portable. Someone’s even tried it here. I don’t really need one, but it is intriguing.
Various other kits/ideas
I’ll not list them all, there’s a lot around. From retro console emulators, to home automation, as well as various smaller projects. Many temptations, but not sure yet.
Conclusion
I’ll stick to the couple of initial ideas I’ve got planned (shutter tester and Pi-Hole). The others will wait, I’ll see how I get on with each, and see if they spark any ideas. There’s probably a few Arduino projects that might be interesting. I may have a play with OpenFaaS on a laptop in the meantime.
arduino raspberry pi computing tech