Ask HN: What projects have you made with boards like Raspberry Pi, Arduino? - akudha
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stevekemp
When I was getting ready to take paternity leave I figured I'd either a)
explore "hardware", or b) take a stab at learning mobile development.

In the end I started playing with Arduinos. After a very short while I got a
little addicted, but switched to using ESP8266 devices - because having
onboard wifi made the hardware so much more useful.

I've built, experimented with, and torn down a hell of a lot of projects in
the three years since. But my absolute favourite project is nothing more than
an LCD screen which shows me the next tram-departures from the local stop:

[https://steve.fi/hardware/helsinki-tram-
times/](https://steve.fi/hardware/helsinki-tram-times/)

That project was hacked up in an hour or two, but later made much more
"producty" \- being configurable with a web-browser, and being installed in a
3d-printed case I paid somebody to make for me.

Over time I've added little hacks, so now it alternates between showing "$HOUR
$DATE" and "$HOUR $TEMPERATURE" in the top-line. Because my wife would often
ask me "Is it cold outside?"

I've done more impressive things; such buying a random radio-based
temperature/humidity sensor, then having to sniff for the packets, decode the
bitstream, and inject the temp/humidity into an MQ queue. But for sheer
practicality, and sheer usefulness, the always-on clock and tram display has
been worth it.

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devenblake
My Pi 3B is a media server right now. I have it hooked up through HDMI,
converted to composite, and run to my Commodore 1702 so I can watch cartoons.
It has probably around 80GB of movies and another 80GB of music, 10GB of
books, and a couple gigs of pictures on a partition of a hard drive that's
hooked up via a SATA bay. Over the years it's been an IRC server, a Tor
webserver, an emulation station, and a backup computer to watch South Park
after my old one died.

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user_agent
Nothing very fancy:

1) A home server for hosting a couple small websites for free, instead of
wasting cash on $5/mo VPS. 2) A cluster of PIs for training with distributed
computing (Docker, K8s). 3) An EMP proof remote backup case with a Pi and a
large, encrypted HDD -- mounted in a metal military case intended for storing
ammunition. I keep it in my pal's place.

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aosaigh
I’m currently working on a controller for my standing desk. The built-in
switch was just a plain old up/down one.

I’m using a relay switch, home bridge and an infrared height sensor to
automatically raise and lower the desk to certain presets.

Another project I have is to use the pi camera and a small display to detect
movement and show a fact/quote/lyric on the screen.

~~~
akudha
wow, that standing desk idea is nice. Do you have a blog?

