STICKY: The projects list. Look here for some ideas.

[Jessie]

I am a member of a couple forums out there on the web and I have found that many people on many forums have trouble deciding what to do with the Raspberry Pi. Sometimes people don't understand how much a small ARM processor can accomplish.

We all know that the main goals of this project are educational. We will not be discussing that here. This thread is to showcase projects that people are making, ideas, uses for the Pi, etc. I will try and look through posts and link to ones I find but inevitably I will miss some so just let me know if you want it included here. Likewise if you see your work linked here and would prefer it to be removed, let me know.

Media Player: For early adopters, media slinging will be a primary use. The Raspberry Pi features full hardware decode at up to 1080p by 30 fps.

Emulation box: This will be one of my first projects. Upon launch someone will need to re-compile some emulators to work. I expect this to be a non-issue, getting some optimised for the R-Pi will take someone familure with ARM cores and ARM assembly. Un-optimized many games made well into the 90's should run fine. Particularly appealing is the fact that the R-Pi should embed into a joystick just fine for some self contained gaming. Just a warning: in some countries it is illegal to own ROMs even if you own a legit copy of the game, be aware of your local laws.

Integration Projects: Projects where the Pi is integrated into something, for example keyboards, external HDD enclosures, retro game consoles, retro PCs, USB Hubs, etc. One of our forum moderators Abishur is working on a NES integration project:
For the good of the community projects: Anything that will benefit not computer literate people or the educational launch.  One person so far at the head of this is Liam Fraser.  He has so far made YouTube tutorials, and is heading up the GUI SD card imaging application seen:

Controller for a homebrew CNC machine: Motor control for a CNC machine.

Timelapse Photogrophy. Mounted to a dolly and controlling a camera for time-lapse photography.

This guide is not finished by any means. I will be adding to it. If you want something added to it please post in this thread or in this thread…

[Jessie]

Distributed Computing / Cluster:  Taking several Raspberry Pis, networking them, and distributing a computing load accross them.  It is assumed that this will be for educational perposes only, as the SOC dosn't have much grunt.  But who knows what uses someone may find for this later on.

Weather Ballon:  Using a R-Pi to monitor various things and take video from a weather baloon.

Augmented Reality:  Take a camera feed and place objects onto it, and make it all interactive.

Car PC:  Use a R-Pi to integrate a PC into your car.

Robotics:  Integration into a robot of some kind.  With the use of various sensors and controllers attached to GPIO this should be no issue.

Packet Radio Device:  Like text messages for Ham radio operators.

GPS Device:  Add a GPS module and create a low cost GPS device.

Forum member meltwater has begun a page at the wiki site so that the community can update as needed.  It is still in it's infancy but with some help it will be great…
v 1.1

[Tyggerjai]

Motor control. Homebrew CNC tools are becoming popular, but at the moment, as far as I know, they need a dedicated PC while the job runs. Most people doing it have either an old PC or laptop for the purpose, but it would be great to have a compact, low power solution just to run the motors. You could design/plot the job on the desktop/laptop, and then download the g code to the raspberry pi.

I plan on doing a similar thing with a motion control system for mechatronic stuff - design and code on a PC, but then download to a Raspberry pi to actually run. That means I can cut the PC out of the loop entirely and use the Raspberry Pi to interface with input devices like joysticks, etc, without requiring a full-blown "computer".

[Jesse B]

I was actually considering doing a CNC control system with an RPi.  If nobody else is interested (or if someone wants a partner) I can probably work on some software.

If I get some feedback showing interest in this, I can see what I can do (as time permits, I'm a full time student, but I won't let that stop me).

[Paul_]

I plan to use the Pi as a controller for a Timelapse/Camera Dolly. It will control bricks from tinkerforge (similarly to arduino, but a modular system) that drive the sledge and the camera (Nikon D90)

[Redion]

I am planning on using board as a RAID controller for bunch of my USB sticks. 

Have like a box with a 20 USB ports filled with USB cards, HUB will have to use external PSU though

Then share the array via network and have networks storage. Same thing can be accomplished with external hard drives.  

I will also install RPI into big LCD TV and put some web cames on the corners so RPI will have 3D vision, and then will go from there. Probably have RPI display eyes that are looking at the moving object

 Would be nice not only to control motors with GERT board but also receive data back from sensors.  Once that is possible my RPI is going to go straight into my laser printer as main board and Scanner/Laser controller. 

Attach GPS receiver to the RPI  and put in into a car. Have a little display with the GPS app showing my way. Tom-Tom uses linux to power their GPS devices, so maybe with some reverse engineering we could run Tom-Tom software on the RPI. 

Use RPI as a controller for an RC car or an Airplane. Attach some cameras and the controller board.  

Use RPI as a controller for a 3D printer. Small and easy to install

Those all my ideas so far

[kme]

Redion said:


I am planning on using board as a RAID controller for bunch of my USB sticks. 

Have like a box with a 20 USB ports filled with USB cards, HUB will have to use external PSU though


Forget it. You have one USB2 bus with a theoretical throughput of 480 Mbit/s at half duplex.

[Redion]

kme said:


Redion said:


I am planning on using board as a RAID controller for bunch of my USB sticks. 

Have like a box with a 20 USB ports filled with USB cards, HUB will have to use external PSU though


Forget it. You have one USB2 bus with a theoretical throughput of 480 Mbit/s at half duplex.



Well the RPI only has 100mbps network interface anyways. So no hight speed needed

[kme]

Redion said


Well the RPI only has 100mbps network interface anyways. So no hight speed needed


Well, it ain't that bad, actually it has 100 Mbps (you are arguing with an engineer! We know SI). It still doesn't make sense to connect 20 USB disks/devices to one USB2 port.

[Redion]

kme said:


Redion said


Well the RPI only has 100mbps network interface anyways. So no hight speed needed


Well, it ain't that bad, actually it has 100 Mbps (you are arguing with an engineer! We know SI). It still doesn't make sense to connect 20 USB disks/devices to one USB2 port.



as far as I saw RPI has 2 usb ports. But I guess it is still one controller so by splitting 20 stick into 10 on first usb port and ten on second will not make a difference?

[kme]

Redion said:


kme said:


Redion said


Well the RPI only has 100mbps network interface anyways. So no hight speed needed


Well, it ain't that bad, actually it has 100 Mbps (you are arguing with an engineer! We know SI). It still doesn't make sense to connect 20 USB disks/devices to one USB2 port.


as far as I saw RPI has 2 usb ports. But I guess it is still one controller so by splitting 20 stick into 10 on first usb port and ten on second will not make a difference?


Right, I meant one USB2 bus, not port. You still only have 480 Mb/s for all devices. And 480 Mb/s is a theoretical number.

[EricMiddleton]

I'm planning on making some sort of augmented reality system using a couple Raspberry Pi's. I'm thinking about putting a small touch screen and a camera on one and using it to identify and track objects. I might make the other one into a smart quadrocopter that can track objects from the air. Kind of like the Parrot AR drone, but made for serious usage and not gaming.

[Francesco]

I'd like to use a R-Pi for a car pc, with an in-dash touchscreen for gps navigation, music and whatever else I may want to do.

[meltwater]

WIKI UPDATED:

I''ve linked to this thread too from the wiki pages.

Hopefully people will want to add their own projects in there (I may add the current ones which have links if there are no objections).

You are welcome to use the wiki space to create your own project page to document/show off your work and perhaps guide others to follow your work!

Otherwise, feel free to link to your blogs etc.

(It may be easier than trying to document it within the forum where edits are limited)

[tipam]

Intelligent robot/buggy  Most robots and buggies are pretty dumb. With some face/speech recognition software, a webcam, mini-screen, on-board R-Pi and Gertboard, I'm pretty sure some amazing robots could be developed.  With the media abilities of the R-Pi, a media robot could stream movies, play games, have an on screen face - the possibilities make home robotics a lot more fun, interactive and affordable!

[caohaoim]

I want to use it as a hearing aid.  Will need to add stereo audio input and then pull stereo output.   Need to be able to amplify individual frequencies as needed and administer hearing test to build a profile.

I am looking for help with this.  Off to bed now will check back.

[kenk]

I am a ham (Amateur Radio Operator) I would like to build a device for packet radio.

Typically you connect your radio to a PC and then you can type text messages to others over the air waves. I would like to have a small device to do this for my emergency kit. something with a 7" screen possibly touch which will run at relatively low power, that way I can run it on batteries during emergencies.

I think the pi would be great for this with its low power consumption.

[chrisyagami]

HDD for Record from Camera MiniDV through of firewire (to usb) !

http://www.raspberrypi.org/for.....ra-minidv/

[Jessie]

Many thanks to those that have posted in here.  I will update the thread this weekend sometime.

[Charles Beener]

I have two project planed for the RPI.

Make a slide show of any pictures that's on a USB memory stick.not a SD card.

It needs to display Pictures and movies on the video output port.

This next is going to be harder.

Right now were using Windows XP to capture video as a PVR and capture it to a

MPG2 file. We take that file and send it out the USB port serial to a Digital Video transmitter as the file is being made. Yes the PVR writes  it the same time we read it.

We need to take the RPI and use its 264 file format and send it out its

USB port to the transmitter.

I don't know Unix/Linux very much at all. Its going to be a very big challenge.

[Jessie]

@Charles B.  Don't worry about not knowing Linux too well.  I'm a Windows junkie myself.  I do use Linux now and then because file/disk/partition management is hard to beat in Linux.  But, due to the fact that I am lazy and if something dosn't work in 10 to 30 mins I look for something else, I use Windows most of the time with a Linux Virtual Box on my desktop.  The best of both IMO.  Windows for games, Linux for work that is how I roll.

You will find modern Linux to be very user friendly, it will just take some time to get used to the new commands and the places it puts things.  I learned Linux with Slackware durring the 90's you will find that Debian/Fedora/Ubuntu/Arch are far more forgiving (well even modern slack is more forgiving than back in the day.)

Your first project can be done with minimal effort.  I'm sure XBMA will handle it just fine.  Project two I can't speak too much on but it sounds do-able and if you probe the community after the product launches I'm sure you will get plenty of help.

[halberti]

so, how about some home safety! I"m thinking about integrating an simple usb webcam, software motion control and perhaps the ability to communicate through IM when motioncontrol is triggered?
Next step is to arm/disarm through IM and get the pictures/recorded video to your smartphone?
(Pardon my english, i"m dutch)

[Jaseman]

Kiosk Web Browser.

Obvious, but I can't believe nobody else listed it.

I would think the size, low power consumption, quietness and price make this an obvious choice for an interactive display in a exhibition.

[fadedknight]

I'd thought of making my own pinball table for some time using Visual Pinball to handle the software and display side of things (probably using a laptop as the screen and brain of the machine), with an iPac (from my MAME controler) to supply switch inputs.

I just never got around to researching how to send an output from the PC/laptop out to fire the tables solenoids and so on.

I'm thinking the gertboard is the way to do this now and the RPi can do the rest. So a small and simple custom pinball table is my first experiment.

Can't wait to try.

[3rr0r-404]

Eric Middleton said:



I'm planning on making some sort of augmented reality system using a couple Raspberry Pi's. I'm thinking about putting a small touch screen and a camera on one and using it to identify and track objects. I might make the other one into a smart quadrocopter that can track objects from the air. Kind of like the Parrot AR drone, but made for serious usage and not gaming.




To be honest if you could add a decent power source/battery pack and a satellite phone to ethernet/USB interface you could have a quadracopter that was remotely controllable from anywhere.