Raspberry Pi: Top 20 projects to try yourself

The best projects to try with the Raspberry Pi Zero

14) The Raspberry Pi Tablet

Maker Faire contestant Michael Castor used a Raspberry Pi to make his own tablet.

The wooden frame was designed using AutoCAD. Castor then fit a power supply, Raspberry Pi, and 10in touch-sensitive display inside the frame.

The results are impressive. The PiPad is a full-size tablet running Raspbian Linux with XBMC.

15) PiRate Radio

Turns out the Raspberry Pi can do more that just computing. It can send out signals over FM airwaves. It’s perfect for users who’ve dreamt about starting their own pirate radio station.

Some basic tools like a soldering iron, wire cutters, and an FM radio can come together to make a local FM radio transmitter. The video claims it can cover an entire football stadium.

16) Home-made media centre

The Raspberry Pi runs Raspbian Linux, a variant of Debian. Linux runs XBMC, the free media center program. Put those together and you’ve got a home-made media centre.

XBMC has a rich plugin library allowing you to use your Pi to watch content from sources like Hulu, The Daily Show, Netflix and Amazon Prime.

17) Jack the Ripper Bot

Not to be confused with the notorious serial-killer from London, the Ripper Bot is simply a DVD changer. One Raspberry Pi fan was tired of manually changing out discs while ripping DVDs to store content digitally.

The machine uses 3D-printed parts to pull CDs out of the player, drop them off to the side, and then load in a new one. Of course, it's powered by a Raspberry Pi.

18) This is the Droid you're looking for

A Raspberry Pi owner known as Greensheller went all out for Valentine’s Day last year and built a functioning R2-D2 for his girlfriend.

The little droid is brought to life by the Pi and can recognise and track faces, motion and distance. You can even give it commands in English and Chinese.

The creator’s girlfriend loved it, calling it “the best gift she’s ever received.” Alas, instructions aren't available at this time, so you'll have to use the force to help you construct this one.

19) Create a talking toy phone

Finally, a blogger by the name of Grant Gibson used a Raspberry Pi to create a talking telephone toy.

The project uses a Fisher Price Talking Telephone that features in Toy Story 3. Gibson used one he bought for his infant son.

A Raspberry Pi Model B+ gives the phone more brains than it was built with. A tiny WiFi dongle provides wireless network access, and a custom Python script (code below) running on startup provides all of the logic.

20) Track your cat with a Raspberry Pi

A mobile connected moggy you can monitor


Jeremy Wall has shown how you never have to put up posters looking for a missing cat with this handy pussy monitoring device.

IoT Kitteh uses a Raspberry Pi, mobile and GPS technology to communicate with the cloud and back to a user.