If you’ve arrived here after seeing/speaking to me at the weekend…. hello!

Pumpkins

I’m part way through writing up my pumpkin + Scratch game but I thought I’d put the basics in a post for the keen ones amongst you.  Remember, take care when wiring anything to your Pi or the magic smoke may escape!

• Touch sensor was from made by AdaFruit and from Pimoroni (other retailers are available)
• Scratch GPIO interface can be found on Cymplecy‘s website
• The main Scratch loop looks like this
• The Scratch project can be downloaded here

Jamming

This is the second Jam I have attended (I made it through the snow for the inaugural one back in January).  It was great to see how some projects had evolved (i.e. Leo’s BigTrak) and the variety of projects on show; from a simple motor control project to a fully mocked up home automation system.  Neil Ford of Code Club fame rocked up with a few Pis ready for hands on hacking as well.

This time as someone with something to demonstrate I had a very different perspective on the afternoon.  It was great to interact with the young people and I hope I didn’t bamboozle them too much with what was going on in my Scratch game, but “touch a pumpkin, stuff happens” is a bit too simple!  It would be great to get more youngsters to come along but that’s probably still some way off yet.

Big thank you to Albert for organising it (and Gartner for the use of their offices).  Albert has a much better write up on his blog.