Seeing all these techno movies like terminator, transformers… always had in my mind, as a programmer i also need to try something out. Rather than imagining, i decided to take a little leap towards it and use my programming skills. With all these IOT buzz around the tech world, i did my analysis for cheaper investment, found RaspberryPI and Andrino was best options for me and i choose RaspberryPI.
Why did i name it CaRobotics?
So it goes like this, once my series of raspberry pi is complete, i am hoping to complete my program creating a robotic car with PYTHON and few electronics components which we will list soon and i kind of like the CaR + Robotics phrase. And this is only PART 1 :).
1 The Raspberry PI
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, got this one from Souq (Now Amazon) for 160 AED ($44). This is mini computer which fits in your pocket and you just need a micro USB power (5V) to run the whole show, can you believe it? it has WIFI, Bluetooth, 4 USBs, HDMI port, audio , video and camera module and GPIO (General Purpose Input Output). According to me, GPIO is the magic door for developers and ideal for all your IOT use cases, but we will get there step by step, no rush :).
Above is my Raspberry PI – 3B, Refer here for the complete specification.
- Quad Core 1.2GHz Broadcom BCM2837 64bit CPU
- 1GB RAM
- BCM43438 wireless LAN and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) on board
- 100 Base Ethernet
- 40-pin extended GPIO
- 4 USB 2 ports
- 4 Pole stereo output and composite video port
- Full size HDMI
- CSI camera port for connecting a Raspberry Pi camera
- DSI display port for connecting a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display
- Micro SD port for loading your operating system and storing data
Follow this link for detailed info on Raspberry PI
I have my Pi, so whats next?
I was curious to get one Raspberry PI, got it now, whats next? Now we need to connect this mini brain to a display. I connected mine to TV initially, but before we proceed with our installation and configuration, need a Micro SD Card. i bought 16GB micro SD card for 16AED ($4.5).
Quick Steps for Raspberry Pi !!!
1. Prepare your SD Card with your OS from your laptop and follow ths link https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-setting-up/2 for SD Card preparation with your OS. I choose NOOBs.
2. Connecting your display, keyboard, mouse. https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-setting-up/3
3. Powering your Pi. https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-setting-up/4
On connecting the micro USB power, you will see red light on the motherboard and green light will start blinking once the system is ready to proceed.
4. Installation Screen
Follow this link for video instructions for installing OS in SD Card.
few TIPs
1. To open Terminal using CTRL + ALT + T. sudo apt-get update – update apt-get sudo apt-get upgrade – upgrade all packages
2. sudo rasp-config – This will help us to configure your password for user “pi”, update OS, enable SSH, enable/disable I/O ports, camera, boot options,..lot more.
3. Add a new User to sudo group. sudo adduser ronaldo sudo check here for more info.
4. Use wget in terminal to download any file or image.
5. Install git for downloading source code from your repositories. sudo apt-get install git Cheatsheet link for git commands.
6. Enable Remote Desktop, SSH – Open terminal/commandprompt, type ifconfig, note the IP address which could be used for remote desktop or SSH. Enabling RDP on your Raspberry helps you to share your keyboard/mouse and display 🙂 with your current laptop, no need to connect anything to your PI, it just need its power. Following commands will eb help you in configuring RDP. sudo app-get install tightvncserver sudi app-get install xrdp And for enabling SSH, sudo rasp-config Refer here for getting more details on how to Remote Desktop/SSH.
Wanring : Do not enable RDP or SSH without changing your default password for user “pi”, which is raspberry.
7. Assign Static IP – Why you need this? SSH and RDP, you dont need search for your dynamic IP every time.
sudo route -n – Get your Gateway from here sudo service dhcpcd status – checking if its running, if not running run the below underlined lines,
sudo service dhcpcd start
sudo systemctl enable dhcpcd
sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf – editing your DHCP client daemon (DHCPCD) file. Add only below underlined lines lines at the top, interface wlan0 static ip_address=192.168.86.100 – Update with current IP or choose a new one in 192.168.86.x series, type ifconfig command in another terminal to get your current ip assigned.
static routers=192.168.86.1 static domain_name=8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
save by pressing CTRL + X, Press Y and Press Enter key.
sudo shutdown -h now – Restart and verify by ifconfig command.
8. Purge unwanted packages to save space and processing power.
Wolfram to get some free space, or if you installed it specifically to do mathematica – wolfram dont run the below command.
sudo apt-get purge wolfram
sudo apt-get purge wolfram-engine
Office Tools for PI
sudo apt-get purge libreoffice
Creating Sounds Project
sudo apt-get purge sonic-pi
After all the purge, run the below commands
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove
9. Useful commands
sudo shutdown -h now – Pi Shutdown
sudo shutdown -r now – Pi Restart
ifconfig – Network configuration
raspistill -o image.jpg – Take photo after enabling camera
top – Utilization details by processes
10. Buy better and faster SD Card
I have listed here the steps or tricks during my raspberry pi experiments, obviously there will be tons of other useful tips, please do share if any. I will be continuing the series with my first project experience with raspberry pi soon. TotalCost: Raspberry Pi + SD Card – 176 AED ($49.5)
if you have any doubts regarding installation or configuration, strongly recommend to follow/refer official Raspberry PI which i did for my installation.
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