On another note, our first “PiPlay Advance” boards came in:
There was of course an issue with our pin routing, so we had to order a new revision of the boards. So excited to see this project start coming together!
BUT, what I’m more excited to show off is a very early prototype of a project a coworker and I are working on!
It’s a Raspberry Pi Zero powered portable gaming system styled after the Nintendo GameBoy Advance using an SPI TFT and some other little cool things.
This is the first PCB I’ve ever helped design, and I placed the order for it this week. Boards shipped today, which means they will get here between 8 and 40 days. Argh, the waiting sucks!
On another note, Pokken Tournament came out today for the Wii U. It’s a really cool Tekken inspired Pokemon fighting game and so far I am loving it! My Nintendo Network ID is SSilver2k2 so if you want to fight, add me 😀
I also picked up some really cool Nintendo retro consoles this week.
This is the Sharp Famicom Twin. It is the Japanese version of the NES (Famicom) and the Famicom Disk System combined into one unit. I also picked up the Family BASIC addon which allows you to do rudimentary programs in BASIC (HuBASIC) for the NES. BASIC programs can be saved and loaded off of a cassette tape player, or loaded from any audio player.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I got the flu and it kicked my ass! I’ve also been dealing with school, my grandma being sick, work, and just so much stuff on my plate. But yay It’s spring break right now, so I’m back for a bit.
While I was gone the Raspberry Pi 3 was released! How awesome is that! A 64bit Quad Core ARM core running at 1.2ghz with 1GB of RAM AND built in WiFi and Bluetooth. And it’s still only $35!
I’ve also almost finished the Storm Trooper Helmet
So this week the Raspberry Pi Foundation released a new version of Raspbian that includes experimental support for OpenGL. This is a big leap from OpenGL ES. This is real OpenGL that tons of games and software use. No mobile versions required anymore. That being said, its super experimental. It basically breaks the official screen and the camera doesn’t work. It also only works in xwindows and not on the command line.
BUT! One of my favorite games (and the way I lost 50lbs) is now available on the Pi! StepMania! The Dance Dance Revolution simulation game!
Here’s how to compile it:
First clone the StepMania repo:
git clone https://github.com/stepmania/stepmania stepmania
cd stepmania
A lot of these you will probably already have installed.
Now cd into the Build directory and start the configuration process (and run it one more time afterwards)
cd Build
cmake ..
cmake ..
Now you will want to edit the CMakeCache.txt which has some of the configuration options.
nano CMakeCache.txt
Look for CRASH_HANDLER and set it to OFF, SSE2 should be set to OFF, and Full Release should be set to ON.
press ctrl-x then y to save.
Now lets compile StepMania!
make
Let that run until it is done, should take about 3 or 4 hours. When it’s complete run
cd ..
./stepmania
and you should now be playing StepMania!
All of your configurations will be under ~/.stepmania, and your songs and stages go under ~/stepmania
The winner of the Raspberry Pi Zero giveaway is Aaron! Congratulations! I will be emailing you later tonight!
Onto other news. This has been a hell of a week. Had a small health scare with my grandmother, so we drove 200 miles yesterday to visit her. We spent the night and drove back home today. Hence the late post. Shes doing better, so phew! 😀
This week I implemented a cool video encoding queuing system using Redis and Django. The module I used is called Django-RQ, and it makes it super simple to convert your functions into queue-able objects using the @Job decorator.
This Tuesday is my birthday! Woo! I turn 32. I’m content. I also start classes that night. Yay lol. I bought this as a gift for myself:
It’s a Monoprice Maker Architect 3D Printer for $300. It’s a major upgrade compared to my Micro, but it takes a lot more to get it going. I’ve had it for two days and I’ve finally got most of the settings dialed in.
When I went to visit my Grandma I took along my Kinect sensor and used Skanect to scan her, so I was able to quickly print out a very low poly version of her as a bust.
The Skanect free version limits exports to only 5000 polygons. Once I upgrade I can export at full resolution.
Happy New Year! 2015 was an amazing year. I learned a lot this year. Had some ups, some downs, some all arounds, but mostly, this was a great year. I’m pleased to have shared it with all of you.
To start off 2016 right, I’m giving away a Raspberry Pi Zero. Just fill out the form and in a week I will select a winner and send it out.
Have a wonderful 2016 everyone and thanks for reading.
TGIF! Thank goodness it’s Friday. This has been a trying week.
For the bad: I had a little food poisoning, had a small car issue, and dealt with an anxiety attack of epic proportions (hooray for an understanding doctor’s office / doctor.)
For the good: Got most of the kickstarter parts in. Found a really cool edge case in a program we developed at work, and was able to fix it! Also pushed a large project out to AWS for work and it worked. The more I use AWS for large scale applications the more I love it. Still afraid of vendor lock in for my personal projects though.
