If you are wondering about where the best Raspberry Pi projects can be found, then you have your answer here.
Way back in the 80s, the Raspberry Pi was launched as a low-cost computer which was the size of a credit card! All you had to do was to plug in a computer monitor or TV, and a standard keyboard and mouse and voilà, you had a ready-made PC at hand.
It enabled people of all ages to explore computing and made it possible for them to learn the basics of programming in languages like Scratch and Python.
Today, there are a number of single-board computers (SBC) like the Asus Tinker, Odroid-XU4, Arduino Mega, and PocketBeagle, and yet the Raspberry Pi is still the most popular one.
This is probably due to the fact that it is still the best in terms of its affordability, performance, iterations and the solid support that it enjoys from various Raspberry communities.
These communities still tinker around with different sets of electronics and come up with some compelling and useful projects built around the Raspberry Pi. It also allows you to have some fun while being used in some splendid game codes and entertainment projects.
Special Note: If you are new to Raspberry Pi, you would need a basic setup that doesn’t need a chunk of settings, and there in comes NOOBS. NOOBS is easy and straightway to set up Raspberry Pi for the first time without any network access and downloading any extra software. NOOBS (New Out Of Box Software) is an easy operating system install manager for those who want to work with Raspberry Pi.
You just have to go its download page to get the copy of NOOBS zip file, unzip it while extracting all the files in a folder. You can head over to Raspberry Pi source to download note the instructions to get started with NOOBS.
See More: 5 Kickstarter Gadget Gifts to Make Your Inner Geek Smile
Here is Our Selection of the Best Raspberry Pi Projects
1. Build a Robot Arm
If robots fascinate you, then surely this kit is for you! No matter what your age or background is, you can learn to code and build and control as well. This Raspberry Pi project is an award-winning robotic arm kit that is easy for beginners to start working with Raspberry Pi.
Get more information about the project here.
2. Pi Music Box
If you are looking for standalone streaming music (Link- Top 10 Tools to Record Streaming Audio) player for Google Music, SoundCloud, Spotify, Webradio, Podcasts, Pi MusicBox is something for sure that will help you.
You just have to connect the 25$ Raspberry Pi to your audio system, configure MusicBox and let the music play. It allows you to control music using a phone, tablet, laptop, PC or laptop.
The player will not stop even if you are multitasking, making it one of the best Raspberry Pi Projects.
Get more information about the project here.
3. Digital DJ System
Want to go old school with your music? PiDeck is a digital music set consisting of vinyl turntables to play a digital music file. The DJs can mix and scratch virtual songs with real-life decks. That’s pretty awesome stuff.
It is an open source project where the software is based on the (ARM Hard Float) port of Debian GNU/Linux stable (jessie) and xwax. With this, you can save carrying heavy boxes of vinyl from one place to another.
Get more information about the project here.
4. The Walkie-Talkie
Talkiepi is a wifi “walkie” talkie that is perfect for kids and their friends. Used for fun and communications via a channel created by the push of a button.
It is also called a “push to talk” interface. This uses Mumble as a protocol for voice communication where Mumble is an open-source voice chat system designed for PC gamers.
Get more information about the project here.
5. Build your own Magic Mirror
There can be a lot of magic mirror projects where you can get news, calendar, or headlines, and other information right on a two-way mirror. You will need an LCD monitor, Raspberry Pi, and Magic Mirror 2 code.
Magic Mirror 2 is an open-source and community-driven project that is maintained by enthusiasts. It has a strong API that allows 3rd party developers to tinker the project and build other modules.
You can be the user and developer as well. You can have your own touch-screen monitor where you can play videos, listen to news, music and do a lot of exciting stuff.
Get more information about the project here.
6. Time-Lapse Photography
Time-lapse photography is used to capture film frames at a lower rate than the normal speed so that you can see each detailed frame in a sequence.
The process is easy. You have to set up a camera on a tripod on the location where you can capture the scene. Then, you have to fix a duration and leave the camera to do its job.
Once the set time is over, you can download all the images and see the magic of time-lapse photography. Time can vary from hours to days.
A perfect example is the capturing the sunset as shown in the image.
Get more information about the project here.
7. Capture Images with USB Camera
Using this tiny credit-card sized computer called the Raspberry Pi, you can interface a USB camera and Wi-Fi. You can also make a webcam server using VLC Apache2 server software.
The link given explains you in detail about the process of preparing the OS, connecting the display monitor and connecting the USB camera and Wi-Fi dongle.
Get more information about the project here.
8. Face Recognition
This is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects that is quite enjoyable to build. Technology is used for security measures too. At present, there is a high demand for a biometric security system in all the small and big firms, home, and shops.
You can now build a project of Face Recognition using Raspberry Pi. This project will need Raspberry Pi B+, Raspberry Pi camera, a push button switch, a relay, and other small components.
Get more information about the project here.
9. Build a GPS Tracker
Almost all the devices like our smartphones are GPS enabled. It is used to find the current location on earth using data like latitude and longitude.
Although connecting a GPS to a computer is nothing new, doing same on Raspberry Pi is quite a different experience.
After building this can be one of the best Raspberry Pi projects as you can do some very interesting predefined tasks with the GPS data.
Get more information about the project here.
Best Raspberry Pi Projects – Create Quirky Animals
10. See Like a Bat
See like a bat is an echolocation device that you can wear and see like a bat. Echolocation is the biological sonar that is used by many animals to listen to the echoes of the environment.
It is an ability to sense echoes from the objects around us.
Get more information about the project here.
11. Flappy Parrot
Flappy parrot is a game where you have to guide a parrot through scrolling pipes that will help in scoring points.
You will need a computer that is capable of running Scratch as the project is supported by the Scratch OS.
Get more information about the project here.
Best Raspberry Pi Projects in the Artistic Arena
12. Magazine
Magazine is interesting Raspberry Pi projects where you will learn to use HTML and CSS to create a multi-page magazine website with a two-page layout.
You may also get a chance to relearn HTML and CSS techniques from a variety of projects.
Get more information about the project here.
13. Mystery Letter
You can create a mystery letter by merging up letters that look like they are all have been cut from a different newspaper, magazine, comic or any other source of letters.
Yes, it’s an artistic Raspberry Pi project that will allow you to have some fun with beautiful letters and words.
Get more information about the project here.
14. Animate a Snow Scene
This project will help you animate a car driving through a snow scene using Blender, which is a fantastic animation software. You just need a computer that is compatible with Blender.
Get more information about the project here.
15. Rocket
Rocket is a mini Raspberry project where you can create a model of a rocket using Blender.
Get more information about the project here.
16. Block House
If you are wondering what are some of the more creative things you can do with a Raspberry Pi, Block House is an exceptionally cool option.
While doing this project, you will learn how to edit objects and extrude in Blender by creating a house from a single block.
Get more information about the project here.
Best Raspberry Pi Projects for Book Lovers
17. Tell a Story
If you are a storyteller and want to bring your talent to people, then this Raspberry Pi project will teach you how to create your own webpage to tell a story, joke, or poem.
You can use images with dialogues to create an interactive and attractive story description.
Get more information about the project here.
18. Pride and Prejudice for Zombies
Have you ever wondered what will happen if you have zombies in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Well, find out with this project.
The zombies love to eat brains but more than that they love to read about eating brains. Your aim while building this project is to create literature for the zombies to read.
This must be done so that you can keep them distracted and save your life from them. If you are a Zombie genre fan, this is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects that you will enjoy doing every bit.
Get more information about the project here.
Raspberry Pi Projects Related to Security
19. Secret Messages
Secret Messages is a simple project of making your own encryption program to send and receive secret messages. This can be a great way to keep your data and messages away from prying eyes.
Get more information about the project here
20. Password Generator
In the era of sending most of the information online, this project will help you create a program to generate strong and hard to break passwords.
This can be helpful for you so that you can protect your sensitive information on the internet. The password will be random to avoid any hacker from guessing it.
Get more information about the project here.
21. Build an OctaPi
Build an OctaPi is a bit different from others. You will learn to make a distributed computer system.
Eight Raspberry Pi 3 computers act as servers and another Raspberry Pi 3 act as the client which controls the servers.
It can also be called as cluster computer which is a type of cloud computing.
Get more information about the project here.
Best Raspberry Pi Projects for Building Games
22. Boat Race
Coming to the games, Boat Race is the project where you learn to make a racing game. While playing the game, the player has to use the mouse to navigate a boat.
The destination is a desert island and you win by avoiding all the bumping obstacles.
Get more information about the project here.
23. Brain Game
If you love using the brain in the game, then build this is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects that can create a times table quiz.
Your aim is to get as many answers correct as you can in 30 seconds.
Get more information about the project here.
24. Clone Wars
This battle is about the Clone wanting to save the earth from monsters. You have to score as many points as you can by shooting flying space-hippos.
If you get hit by a hippo, you will lose a life. You will see how it works when you try to build it.
Get more information about the project here.
25. RPG
Here comes one of the most popular of gaming genres: RPG. Ever wanted to design and code your own RPG maze game?
This is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects that build an RPG game where your aim is to collect specific objects. This you have to do while trying to escape from a house to avoid all the monsters.
Get more information about the project here.
26. Where’s Zombie
While making use of GPS on your phone, you can make an outdoor zombie apocalypse game to enjoy with your friends.
To power up, you have to collect the supplies while avoiding the zombies. This project will allow you to roam outside the home and use the GPS capabilities of your phone.
Get more information about the project here.
27. Deck of Cards
If you know Python, Deck of cards is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects for beginners. This will help you create a model of a deck of cards.
These can form the basis for building digital card game programs.
Get more information about the project here.
28. Getting started with Minecraft Pi
For all the fans of Minecraft! Now have fun exploring the virtual world of Minecraft Pi, which is a special edition made for Raspberry Pi.
While doing this project, you will learn how to control a player and manually build the blocks.
Get more information about the project here.
29. Code Craft
Codecraft is a project where you design and code improvements to a 2D version of Minecraft. You can play the game, build your own world, or create a new wood resource.
The other options include craft planks from wood, and have fun with a lot more stuff.
Get more information about the project here.
30. Robo Trumps
Robo-Trumps is Raspberry Pi built game where you read data from a file to create robot based trump cards.
The challenges included here are adding more robots, adding more stats to robots, and playing robot trump with a friend. This can get incredibly fun as you progress with the addition of new cards.
Get more information about the project here.
Projects for Fun and Laughter
31. Whoopi Cushion
Having fun and playing mischief with these funky Raspberry Pi projects is also possible now. By making a Whoopi cushion, you can play pranks with your friends, family members or teachers.
A toy balloon made from pig’s bladder would be inflated and hidden under someone’s chair cushion. As the person would sit on it, it makes a loud, weird and funny noise.
Get more information about the project here.
32. Parent Detector
Ever been curious to know who is in your room? Using Raspberry Pi, you can make a parent detector that utilizes a motion sensor.
This will trigger a video recording via a Raspberry Pi Camera Module and show you all.
Get more information about the project here.
33. A Laser Tripwire
A Raspberry Pi laser tripwire is definitely among the best Raspberry Pi projects that help you learn about measuring light levels. It is with a LDR, control a buzzer, play sounds using PyGame Python module.
This project is a combination of a laser pointer, electronic components, and Raspberry Pi. One needs to put together all this to make a laser tripwire.
Whenever any intruder or thief enters that laser beam, the Raspberry Pi will play a warning sound via a buzz or speaker.
Get more information about the project here.
Best Raspberry Pi Projects for Making Music
34. Drum Loop
Here comes something for music admirers and like some percussion. Drum Loop lets you use some samples to create a drum loop that includes an intro and outro.
Get more information about the project here.
35. Sense HAT Music Player
Sense HAT music player is a project where you make your own MP3 player using Raspberry Pi and a Sense HAT.
Using this project you can shift between tracks in your playlist. You can also change the volume and show an elegant disco display on the LED matrix.
Get more information about the project here.
Raspberry Pi Projects for Photography
36. Minecraft Photobooth
This Raspberry Pi project can help you build a photo booth out of blocks in Minecraft.
You can program it to take a real-time picture. You just need a Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi camera module to build this beautiful project.
Get more information about the project here.
37. Time-lapse Animations
One of the best Raspberry Pi projects in photography is creating the time-lapse animations for those who want to track changes over time.
This project teaches you to write a script to capture images using a Pi camera over a long period of time. You can combine those clicked images to make a GIF. By this, you can view slow events in a few seconds.
Get more information about the project here.
38. Tweeting Babbage
While designing this project you can turn an old cuddly toy into a Twitter bot that can post your images on Twitter by using just a push of a button.
Get more information about the project here
Best Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects
39. Build a Line-following Robot
In this Raspberry Pi project, you can turn your robot buggy into a line-following robot buggy that can whiz around a track.
To get started with this project, make sure you have already finished the Build a Buggy resource, or you must have a working buggy.
Get more information about the project here.
40. Remotely Control your Buggy
Like Build a line-following Robot, this mini Raspberry Pi project also requires that you must have already completed Build a Buggy Resource.
The buggy should be motorized buggy so that with the help of this project, you can control it via Remote.
Get more information about the project here.
Projects for Space Games
41. Lost in Space
Lost in Space project help you learn how to program your own animation. You will need a computer capable of running Scratch 2.0.
You can easily animate a spaceship, a floating monkey, a bouncing asteroid, or a shining star or anything else you can think of and create a unique animation.
Get more information about the project here.
42. People in Space
People in Space is a project where you will be creating an International Space Station full of astronauts. They will be visiting for months and coming back to Earth.
You will also design a gadget that will tell you how many people are present in ISS.
Get more information about the project here.
43. 3D-Printed Astro Pi Flight case
The Astro Pi Flight case is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects where you can 3D print your own case. You can also install Astro Pi hardware inside it.
With this project, you can have your own Astro Pi flight unit that is identical to the ones on the International Space Station right now.
Get more information about the project here.
Best Raspberry Pi Projects – Funky Times
44. Interactive badge
Interactive badges is a way to show your friend the current mood of yours. You can display happy faces, sad faces, or create a simple animation to show emotions.
Get more information about the project here.
45. Intermediate Wearables Sushi Cards
Intermediate Wearable Sushi Cards is one of the best Raspberry Pi projects where the Sushi Cards will show you the way to use wearable, programmable LEDs and control them with code.
If you are an epilepsy patient, this project is not suitable for you as it involves bright flashing lights.
Get more information about the project here.
Projects For Weather Forecasts
46. Rainbow Detector
Rainbow Detector uses temperature and humidity sensors on the Sense HAT to predict where there is a chance of a rainbow in the cloud or not.
If the suitable conditions are detected, a rainbow will be displayed on the Sense HAT LED Matrix.
Get more information about the project here.
47. Dress for the Weather
Dress for the Weather is a simple Raspberry Pi project where you will code a program that will tell which dress you should wear in a particular place.
You have to enter the city name and the date you are arriving there, and the code will use OpenWeatherMap (you can read out article Best Weather apps for Android) information.
This will tell you what the weather is like in that city so that you can decide what to wear when you arrive at that city.
Get more information about the project here.
48. Make an Initial State Dashboard for Weather Data
Make an Initial State dashboard for Weather data is a project where you will write a Python code to upload Weather Station data. This is done to the Initial State and builds a simple dashboard that displays, analyzes and shares it.
The Raspberry Pi Oracle Weather Station is a source of weather information that uses sensors to detect weather. Initial State is an online platform which allows you to stream time series data to visualize it.
Get more information about the project here.
49. Snowball Fight
Snowball Fight is a fun project where you code a game in which you have to throw snowballs at a target.
You use the mouse pointer to angle the snowball and spacebar to select the snowball’s power.
Get more information about the project here.
Miscellaneous Projects
50. Control LED with your Voice
Now is the turn to control the LEDs with your voice. You have to give a command in order to switch on or off the LEDs.
Get more information about the project here.
Conclusion
So now that you have seen the fantastic list of some cool Raspberry Pi projects, we hope you will try out some soon. All the best and happy inventing to you all. Do share if you have any unique Raspberry Pi ideas project of your own.
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