As you all know, the Raspberry Pi are small mini PCs / development boards that allow us to perform a multitude of functions and tasks, taking up minimal space and with such low consumption that they can be powered by USB. However, there are many users who have their Raspberry Pi in a drawer because they can’t find what to use it with, so in this article we are going to talk about a handful of projects for newbies that you can do with your Raspberry Pi to give it a new life. .
The projects for the Raspberry Pi that we are going to talk about are designed for beginners, and their put an excellent introduction to the software and hardware capabilities of this machine. If you had yours forgotten in a drawer, surely with one of these you will want to “tinker” with it.
Add a button to your Raspberry Pi
One of the disadvantages of the Raspberry Pi is that it does not have an on / off button (it does not actually have a button of any kind), and as soon as you connect it to the power it starts. For this reason, adding an on / off button to it may be one of the best projects to get started with, right?
In the video above you can see a complete guide on how to add a button to the device, in this case programmed in Python, which you can use to turn the device on and off but you can always change the programming so that it does what you want.
LED lighting controller
Another project for beginners that you can do with the Raspberry Pi is to turn it into an LED lighting controller. This project implies that you obviously have individual LED strips or components; We give you the idea and how to assemble the system is up to you.
Motion sensor with alarm
Sensors and alarms are usually difficult to program, but with your Raspberry Pi you can easily make them work thanks to its GPIO panel. Creating a motion sensor with an alarm is simple and inexpensive, and can also be programmed with Phyton. All you need is the Raspberry, a passive infrared sensor, a piezoelectric speaker (which will be the alarm), some resistors and some wiring.
Digital photo frame
Although the components for this project are obviously somewhat more expensive since it includes buying a small screen, you can also create your own digital photo frame with the Raspberry Pi.
You will need the Raspberry, an LCD screen and a driver. You can also use the LCD panel of any old monitor that you have at home and that you were going to throw away, as well as the official touch screen for the Raspberry.
Web interface for your Raspberry Pi
This is a curious project, and we could really consider it as a novice-advanced project because it requires somewhat more advanced programming knowledge. In any case, since we can add WiFi to the Raspberry (or connect it to the home network), we can create a web interface to do anything from a smartphone, such as turning LEDs on and off, or whatever we need (configure Wake on LAN from home PCs is also an option.)
Turn your printer wireless
For printers that are not wireless, a Raspberry Pi can give them a second life by turning them into such. If you have an old USB printer, you can connect it to the Raspberry and program it as a print server so that any computer on the home network can print to it without the need for it to be physically connected to a USB port on the PC.
Create your own music with Sonic Pi
Sonic Pi can transform your Raspberry Pi into a machine for easily encoding music, allowing you to use basic programming concepts to make your own music, from sound effects to complete songs.
Obviously there are many more projects for the Raspberry Pi that you could do with beginner knowledge, but we consider that these may be some of the most interesting and simple to carry out. Of course, if you have any other in mind that you would like us to add you can tell us in the comments.
