Get those Pis working

I got my first Raspberry Pi back in 2012 when it seemed like the whole world was going crazy over these little devices. You couldn’t get hold of one for love nor money, but much like many others I didn’t actually know what to do with it once I did get one. For months it sat in a drawer and gathered dust. I’m pleased to say that situation changed greatly over the years, though, and most of this is down to the amazing wealth of resources and guides available via the community.

That original model B is still going strong, and lives under my stairs acting as an OPENVPN gateway. I’d love to brag about how I set this up from my own vast encryption knowledge, but that would be a blatant lie. I used the documentation and scripts available via the PIVPN Project.

Of the other two newer Pi 3s I also have, the first lives by the TV and acts as a media centre running OSMC which I installed via the popular (and free) NOOBS tool. The second Pi is currently running home-assistant.io, which is an open source home automation tool written in Python. Other side projects I’ve worked on with Pis over the years include: an open source video streaming platform, a voicecontrolled personal assistant and a portable internet radio (Icecast) broadcast box.

So if you’re like me and you have a Pi sat in a drawer somewhere, I encourage you to break it out and turn it into a robot, a media centre, a games console or who knows what else. The possibilities are endless and the resources available from the community are amazing.