Published June 24, 2019 © CC BY-NC-SA

Four Pies

We give you a quick overview and build a project to welcome the Raspberry Pi 4 to the world!

BeginnerFull instructions provided8 hours1,707

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Adafruit Mini Thermal Receipt Printer

Felt

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

Software apps and online services

Raspberry Pi Raspbian

Hand tools and fabrication machines

3D Printer (generic)

Hot glue gun (generic)

Story

Overview

Below a quick overview of the content.

Introduction and showcase video
Pie
Pi
3.14
Pies
Result

Introduction and showcase video

To welcome and celebrate the new Raspberry Pi 4, we’re building a project consisting of four Pi(e)s!

Project Video

Pie

Our first pie has two parts, a container and a lid.

Both are based on this great 3d model.

All we have to do is make it bigger, and add an opening for our pies to come out.

Container

Lid

Now we have a basic pie, but it does not look the part.

Using some glue, felt and coloured balls we add some extra pie-ness.

There’s a great tutorial on how to exactly do this right here.

Some raspberry styling

Pi

Our pie will hold everything we need, and one of them is our Raspberry Pi 4.

Configuring and powering is done the usual way.

They have a very neat guide on exactly how right here.

If you want to know more details about this new Pi, look no more.

3.14

We want our Pi in our pie to calculate π. To achieve this there’s a bit of python code.

def calculatePi():
  os.system('echo "scale=2000;4*a(1)"|bc -l')

You can play with the precision by changing the scale. The higher the scale, the longer it will take.

Pies

We have a Pi within a pie that calculates π.

The last step is to add some pies.

This requires two things, some ASCII art and a little thermal printer.

First of all, our ASCII pie, thanks to this great website!

We have our ASCII pie, next is connecting the thermal printer. All we need to do is follow the steps outlined here.

Printing them pies

You can find the complete code in the ‘Code’ section.

Result

Now we have a Raspberry Pi 4, in a pie, calculating π, and printing pies!

What better way to welcome the new Raspberry Pi 4 then a Pi(e)fest!

Code

import os
import sys
import time
import re

# Setup our printer
def setup():
    os.system("stty -F /dev/serial0 19200")

# Calculate pi using the system
def calculatePi():
    os.system('echo "scale=2000;4*a(1)"|bc -l')

# Print them pies!
def printPies():
    
#     width of our paper. this many character fit on a single
    width = 32

# Barrier to print between every pie
    barrier = width * '*'

# Our asci art pie
    pi = (
            "                (               "
            "                 )              "
            "            __..---..__         "
            "        ,-=   \  |  /   =-.     "
            "       :--..___________..--;    "
            "        \.,_____________,./     "
        )

#   Command to print   
    os.system('echo "' + pi + '\\n" > /dev/serial0')

try:

    setup()

    while True:

        print('start')
        calculatePi()

        print('done')
        printPies()
        
        time.sleep(2)

except KeyboardInterrupt:
    sys.exit()

Four Pies

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Overview

Introduction and showcase video

Pie

Pi

3.14

Pies

Result

Code

Code

Credits

Comments

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Four Pies

Four Pies

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Overview

Introduction and showcase video

Pie

Pi

3.14

Pies

Result

Code

Code

Credits

Comments

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