• Arduino
• ARM
• FPGA
• Programmable Logic
• Raspberry Pi

A small selection of personal highlights from over the last 12 months.

• ARM
• ARM11
• Assembly
• LED
• Mbed
• Mechanical Design
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Robots
• Test

We are a team of Undergraduate Engineers embarking on an exciting journey into the embedded realm of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Development. Follow us on our facebook fanpage at https://www.facebook.com/coconutpi or stay up to date as we post our fortnightly blog updates to Designspark! Our team is also open to suggestions and opinions from the Designspark Engineering community. You can either comment on our blog posts or just scroll through our daily pictures and updates on our facebook page and leave a helpful comment or suggestion for us to consider in our development process!

• Arduino
• ARM
• Education & Learning Applications
• Industrial Applications
• Raspberry Pi

A few months ago DesignSpark had a brief review of the APC or Android Personal Computer, seen as a possible rival to the Raspberry Pi. I say possible, because despite a flashy website proclaiming the arrival of a ‘$49 Bicycle for the Mind’, it seemed remarkably difficult to get hold of. Things have moved quickly and RS is now the European distributer for the APC and has it in stock. Is it a ‘Pi-Killer’ though?

• ARM
• Development Kits - Electronics
• Power
• Raspberry Pi

A simple time-lapse photography project using the new Raspberry Pi Camera with a Raspberry Pi Model A and a battery pack.

• Arduino
• ARM
• Design Phase
• Ethernet
• Microcontroller Dev Kits
• Microcontrollers
• Microprocessor Dev Kits
• Microprocessors
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Sensors

A comparison of the respective benefits of the low cost embedded development platforms that may help with making a decision as to which to use when.

• ARM
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Test

A number of readers have commented in posts that they are not familiar with Linux so I thought I would explain the process of installing software on Raspberry Pi.

• Arduino
• ARM
• Enclosures
• GAL
• Human Machine Interface
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

I grew up in the dawn of arcade games, and living at the coast meant that I had access to a couple of decent arcades where I could play all the classics as they came out - Space Invaders, Galaxian, De

• Analogue
• Communication
• Communication Applications
• Consumer Applications
• Development Kits - Electronics
• DSP
• FPGA
• GSM
• Raspberry Pi
• Test
• Wireless

With a 300MHz to 3.8GHZ range, 40MHz bandwidth, USB 3.0 interface and priced at only $400, it's hardly surprising bladeRF reached its $100,000 Kickstarter goal in under 8 days.

• ARM
• Batteries
• GAL
• PIC
• Power
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Test

A fun project to see if a solar powered Raspberry Pi could be used to help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.SETI@home allows individuals to donate idle computer time to analysing radio

• Accelerometers
• Arduino
• ARM
• Development Kits - Electronics
• PCB Etching
• PIC
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• RX
• SERIAL
• Wireless

A look at getting the Processing programming language and IDE up and running on a Raspberry Pi, and example code working with the TI Chronos eZ430 development kit.Processing is a programming language

• ARM
• Bluetooth
• Ethernet
• LCD
• PIC
• Power
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Test

Raspberry Pi running Debian/LXDE and displaying the DesignSpark homepageExcitement surrounding the Raspberry Pi has reached fever pitch as enthusiasts, engineers, and software developers and hardware

• Arduino
• ARM
• Circuit Design
• Display & Lighting
• LCD
• PCB Etching
• PIC
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Sensors
• Switches
• Test

Many of us can recall the days when as budding engineers we spent many a joyful hour constructing circuits from kits with names such as “100-in-1”, or from bags of components that provided everyth

• ARM
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

Wednesday 18th July saw the first release of the new official Raspberry Pi Linux distribution, Raspbian. This post covers initial experiences with Raspbian and looks at the major differences between t

• ARM
• Ethernet
• PIC
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Test

Being one of the few Linux users at RS towers I have had the enviable task of taking home one of our Raspberry Pi's to put it through it's paces and I am absolutely amazed.

• ARM
• Assembly
• Development Kits - Electronics
• FLASH
• Interconnect
• Memory
• Microcontrollers
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Robots
• RX
• SERIAL
• Solder
• Test

This post is not about Raspberry Pi. Sorry about that; I thought I'd take a break from all that heady stuff about HD graphics and ARM processors to look at a similar sized and priced beginners' computer board, but located towards the Arduino end of the processor power spectrum. It comes as a kit of parts and you have to solder it together yourself.

• Analogue
• Arduino
• ARM
• ARM11
• Development Kits - Electronics
• Display & Lighting
• FLASH
• H8
• Human Machine Interface
• Interconnect
• Manufacture
• Memory
• Microcontrollers
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Robots
• Sensors
• SERIAL
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

A major highlight of a week of activity at the Sci-Fi London festival was the Horizon Spectrum event at the BFI Southbank celebrating 30 years of the Sinclair Spectrum 'home' computer. I attended the

• ARM
• ARM11
• Communication
• Cortex-M
• Development Kits - Electronics
• Enclosures
• Ethernet
• Human Machine Interface
• Interconnect
• Mbed
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Robots
• Sensors
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Switches
• Test

A competition has been announced with a $10m prize for the first working medical tricorder. If you claim to be an engineer and don't know what I'm talking about, then may I suggest locking yourself in

• Raspberry Pi
• Solder
• Tape & Reel

Jude Pullen's clever little contraption that uses an old bike brake cable and a servo to feed solder.

• Accelerometers
• ARM
• Beagle
• Coldfire
• Communication
• Cortex-M
• Development Kits - Electronics
• DSP
• dsPIC
• Freescale
• Interconnect
• Manufacture
• Mbed
• Memory
• Microcontrollers
• PIC
• PIC32
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Robots
• Sensors
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

As I wrote this blog Raspberry Pi exploded on the scene taking everyone by surprise with the sheer volume of people wanting to buy it. Many readers will have to wait a while to get their hands on one so why not use the time to investigate rather more interesting projects than just writing games? How about giving a humanoid walking robot some Artificial Intelligence…

• Arduino
• ARM
• Display & Lighting
• FRAM
• Mbed
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

DesignSpark celebrates its second birthday this week and it turns out that in a matter of days it will also be my second anniversary here. But if I'm honest I had to check the date, because an awful l

• Arduino
• ARM
• Manufacture
• PIC
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Software Design
• Test

Ok, so this isn't a post about food! but it is a story about a recipe destined for success.Raspberry Pi is a low cost credit card sized ARM/GNU based single board computer that runs on a Linux Platfor

• ARM
• Display & Lighting
• Enclosures
• GAL
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

When I got my Raspberry Pi pretty much the first thing I did with it was to put on OpenELEC, and excellent shrink wrapped package for XBMC. Initially I started compiling it myself

• 740
• Arduino
• ARM
• AVR
• Development Kits - Electronics
• FPGA
• Mbed
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

DesignSpark is two years old! Really? So what? Why is the fact that some website being two years old is of any real interest to people and especially engineers at all? Well there are lots of reasons a

• Arduino
• ARM
• Assembly
• Bluetooth
• Communication
• Enclosures
• Functional Test
• Mbed
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

Dr Jeremy Bennett is Chief Executive of Embecosm, a provider of embedded development tools and services, and is former Champion for Embedded Systems at the Technology Strategy Board's ESP Knowledge Tr

• ARM
• Human Machine Interface
• Manufacture
• Oscilloscopes
• PIC
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Sensors
• Signal Generators
• Test
• x86

The DrDAQ is a multifunction USB device that incorporates sensors for light, sound and temperature, supports external sensors including a pH electrode, and has inputs and outputs...

• ARM
• Circuit Design
• Circuit Simulation
• Cortex-A
• Development Kits - Electronics
• Display & Lighting
• Interconnect
• Mbed
• Microcontrollers
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Test

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple.  But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then

• ARM
• Development Kits - Electronics
• Ethernet
• Human Machine Interface
• Interconnect
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• SERIAL
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Solder
• Test
• USB (Universal Serial Bus)

The Raspberry Pi (aka Raspi) was released back at the end of February but here we are weeks later with no real hardware. We engineers are only interested in the guts of this product.

• Arduino
• ARM
• Chipkit
• Display & Lighting
• FRAM
• Manufacture
• Mbed
• PIC
• Power
• Raspberry Pi
• Robots
• Test

This week marks DesignSpark’s 2nd Birthday and here at RS we are extremely proud of what we have achieved so far.  Since DesignSpark launched back in July 2010, we’ve had almost 2 million vis

• 740
• Arduino
• ARM
• Mbed
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Solder
• Test

One of the key things the Raspberry Pi team have pushed is that this is a tool for education.

• Arduino
• ARM
• Ethernet
• Raspberry Pi

Parallella, A Supercomputer for everyone!

• ARM
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

In the first part of this howto I went through signing up for a cloud service, provisioning a VM, installing the build tools and kicking off a build. All being well you should end up with so

• Arduino
• ARM
• FRAM
• Mbed
• Microcontrollers
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

Now that the Raspberry Pi has started to ship excitement has notched up a level as tweets and blog posts provide tantalising insights into early experiences with the computer.

• ARM
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Test

Alex van Someren is a partner at Amadeus Capital and previously co-founded security technology company, nCipher. In the 1980s he left school to join Acorn Computers, where he was extensively involved

• ARM
• Display & Lighting
• FPGA
• FRAM
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Serial Peripheral Interface
• Test

When we look at technology which is only 15 or 20 years old it can often seem like its from another age — some dark and very distant past that we'd never want to return to, or that seems quaint and

• Raspberry Pi

This week marks the 1st Anniversary of the Raspberry Pi. To celebrate this, RS has produced a Limited Edition Blue Raspberry Pi in celebration of Model B.

• Electronic Design
• Mbed
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Test

I'm very glad to share the series of multiple promotions by RS Components in Japan last week. We delivered the Raspberry Pi to Japan last week, and spent 4 hours with Tokyo TV station.

• ARM
• Display & Lighting
• Human Machine Interface
• Mbed
• PIC
• Robots
• Sensors
• Test

The initial rover chassis was an old radio controlled buggy which belonged to someone in the office - it had some impressive wheels, an MDF structure which allowed an RS-EDP to sit neatly on top of it

• ARM
• Freescale
• Manufacture
• Mbed
• Microcontrollers
• Power

The major Microcontroller manufacturers are all racing to be the leader for a general purpose ARM Cortex IC. Which one you choose really depends on your application and what features you are looking f

• Raspberry Pi

A step by step quide of how to make a Raspberry Pi case using everyday objects

• Raspberry Pi

Ten projects for the Raspberry Pi that range from educational to fun via highly useful.This is by no means an attempt at a definitive list and the term essential is somewhat subjective, but if you're

• Communication
• Enclosures
• Ethernet
• FRAM
• Memory
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• RS232
• SERIAL
• Test
• Wired

In a blog post last month I looked at how a Raspberry Pi can be used to emulate a formidable IBM mainframe, and in this post I describe how a pair can be used to emulate VAX computers

• FPGA
• Microprocessors
• Programmable Logic
• Raspberry Pi

There's a new gold rush, but this time the tools of choice are algorithms and HDL skills instead of pick axes and pans, and machines not people are doing the mining.

• Arduino
• Communication
• Display & Lighting
• Manufacture
• Mbed
• Memory
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• SERIAL
• Test
• USB (Universal Serial Bus)
• WiFi

I was fortunate enough to receive a Raspberry Pi board for review (Thanks, DesignSpark!) a couple of days ago and I have been playing with it pretty much non-stop ever since. (More photos availab

• ARM
• Enclosures
• Manufacture
• Robots
• Test

I had an enjoyable afternoon at the British Engineering Excellence Award ceremony in London last week.It was gratifying to see that the UK still has great design engineers turning theoretical concepts

• Beagle
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• SERIAL
• Serial Peripheral Interface

In part 2 of my review of the Raspberry Pi I mentioned that I normally use VNC to access the Pi desktop from my workstation. That means that I only need one monitor on my desk.

• Enclosures
• PIC
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• Test

In my last blog Raspberry Pi goes to the movies I took an initial look at using the Raspberry Pi as a media centre.In this blog I thought I’d talk you through putting XBMC onto an SD card and running it on a Raspberry Pi.

• Beagle
• Capacitors
• Display & Lighting
• Ethernet
• FLASH
• Human Machine Interface
• MIPS
• PIC
• Power
• Programming
• Raspberry Pi
• RX
• SERIAL
• Solder
• Test
• USB (Universal Serial Bus)
• Wired
• Wireless

The TL-WR703N is a 3G travel router that has become a hit with the hacking community due its low cost, compact size and the ease at which it can be re-purposed. This post covers initial experiences wi

• ARM
• Communication
• Design Phase
• Development Kits - Electronics
• DSP
• Microprocessors
• Programmable Logic
• Programming
• Research Phase
• Robots

As Parallella prototypes start to ship this post takes a look in more detail at what this potentially game changing single board computer provides and a few potential applications.

• Arduino
• Bluetooth
• LED
• Raspberry Pi

We had a lot of fun this Christmas using a Raspberry Pi and MaKey MaKey to control a Bluetooth RC car called the i-Racer.

• Enclosures
• Mbed
• PIC
• Raspberry Pi
• Research Phase
• Test

Turn your Raspberry Pi into a Media Centre