Getting started with Raspberry Pi Zero : get started with the smallest, cheapest, and highest-utility Pi ever--Raspberry Pi Zero

227 Pages·2016·12.349 MB·English

by  Richard Grimmett

Getting Started with
Raspberry Pi Zero
Get started with the smallest, cheapest, and
highest-utility Pi ever—Raspberry Pi Zero
Richard Grimmett
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Getting Started with Raspberry Pi Zero
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First published: March 2016
Production reference: 1210316
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78646-946-5
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Richard Grimmett Francina Pinto
Reviewer Proofreader
David Whale Safis Editing
Commissioning Editor Indexer
Kartikey Pandey Priya Sane
Acquisition Editor Graphics
Tushar Gupta Disha Haria
Content Development Editor Production Coordinator
Merint Thomas Mathew Shantanu N. Zagade
Technical Editor Cover Work
Saurabh Malhotra Shantanu N. Zagade
Copy Editors
Kevin McGowan
Sneha Singh
About the Author
Richard Grimmett has always been fascinated by computers and electronics
since his very first programming project that used Fortran on punch cards. He has
a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in leadership
studies. He also has 26 years of experience in the radar and telecommunications
industries, and even has one of the original brick phones. He now teaches computer
science and electrical engineering at the Brigham Young University, Idaho, where his
office is filled with his numerous robotics projects.
This book is the result of working with the wonderful students at
BYU-Idaho. It also wouldn't be possible without the help of my
wonderful wife, Jeanne.
About the Reviewer
David Whale is a software developer living in Essex, UK. He started coding as
a schoolboy aged 11, inspired by the school science technician to build his own
computer from a kit and quickly progressed to writing machine code programs
because they were "small and fast". These early experiments led to some of his code
being used inside a saleable educational word game when he was only 13.
He has been developing software professionally ever since, mainly writing small and
fast code that goes into electronic products, including automated machinery, electric
cars, mobile phones, energy meters, and wireless doorbells.
These days, he runs his own software consultancy called Thinking Binaries and
spends nearly half of his time helping to design the next wave of the Internet called
The Internet of Things, by connecting electronic devices to it. The rest of the time
he volunteers for The Institution of Engineering and Technology, running training
courses for teachers, designing and running workshops and clubs for school
children, and being busy with his Raspberry Pi, BBC micro:bit and Arduino.
He was the technical editor for the book Adventures in Raspberry Pi and the co-author
of the book Adventures in Minecraft, and is a regular reviewer and editor of technical
books from a number of book publishers.
I was really pleased to be asked to review this great new book of
projects using the Raspberry Pi Zero. The size of the Pi Zero makes
it ideal for building into other products. In this book, Richard
Grimmett takes us on an amazing journey of circuit bending, coding,
and innovating using this tiny computer! But don't stop here; the
projects in this book will give you the skills you need and inspire
you to come up with many new ideas yourself!
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Table of Contents
Preface v
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Raspberry Pi Zero 1
Setting up the Raspberry Pi Zero 2
Powering the board 3
Hooking up a keyboard, mouse, and display 4
Installing the operating system 9
Adding Internet access 14
Accessing your Raspberry Pi Zero from your host PC 17
Summary 30
Chapter 2: Programming Raspberry Pi Zero 31
Powering up Raspberry Pi Zero with Linux 31
Creating, editing, and saving files 37
Creating and running Python programs 39
Basic programming constructs on Raspberry Pi Zero 43
The if statement 43
The while statement 45
Working with functions 46
Libraries/modules in Python 48
Summary 50
Chapter 3: Accessing the GPIO Pins on Raspberry Pi Zero 51
The GPIO capability of Raspberry Pi Zero 51
Simple GPIO digital voltage output 53
Raspberry Pi Zero and LED code 59
Adding a sonar sensor 61
Raspberry Pi Zero and the sonar sensor code 64
Connecting a digital compass to Raspberry Pi Zero 66
Accessing the compass programmatically 70
Summary 75
[ i ]
Table of Contents
Chapter 4: Building and Controlling a Simple Wheeled Robot 77
The basic platform 77
Controlling an H-bridge interface to the DC motors 80
Controlling your mobile platform programmatically using
the Raspberry Pi Zero 83
Controlling the speed of your motors with PWM 86
Using a motor controller board to control the DC motors 89
Controlling the vehicle using the Raspberry Pi Zero in Python 92
Planning your path 96
Summary 100
Chapter 5: Building a Robot That Can Walk 101
Robots that can walk 101
How servo motors work 102
Building the quadruped platform 103
Using a servo controller to control the servos 107
Communicating between the servo controller and a PC 110
Connecting the servo controller to the Raspberry Pi Zero 114
Creating a program in Linux to control your quadruped 118
Summary 121
Chapter 6: Adding Voice Recognition and Speech – A Voice
Activated Robot 123
Communication between the Raspberry Pi Zero and the robot 125
Giving your robot voice commands 129
Using eSpeak to allow your robot to respond with an audible voice 137
Using pocketsphinx to accept your voice commands 138
Interpreting commands and initiating actions 144
Summary 147
Chapter 7: Adding Raspberry Pi Zero to an RC Vehicle 149
Configuring and controlling an RC car with Raspberry Pi Zero 150
Controlling the RC car in Python 160
Accessing the RC car remotely 163
Connecting a webcam 166
Summary 167
[ ii ]
Table of Contents
Chapter 8: Playing Rock, Paper, or Scissors with
Raspberry Pi Zero 169
A robotic hand 170
Moving the robotic hand 172
Connecting the servo controller to the Raspberry Pi Zero 175
Creating a program on Raspberry Pi Zero so that you can
control your hand 178
Installing a USB camera on Raspberry Pi Zero 180
Downloading and installing OpenCV – a fully featured vision library 183
Gesture detection 185
Summary 189
Chapter 9: Adding Raspberry Pi Zero to a Quadcopter 191
Constructing the platform 192
Mission planning software 196
Summary 205
Index 207
[ iii ]