Raspberry Pi Projects for the Evil Genius

Because the Pi is a fully functional PC on a little board, with many features (including multimedia!) in the class of Arduino and Propeller, most project books don't have the space to get into the basics of Pi, like loading the O/S and many other details. Since this is a UK unit, many of the websites (even though this is all open source) are a chore to sort out. Getting the free downloads shown in this book is worth the price of the book itself, DO NOT pay for the O/S on a site, it is free on many others, as shown in this fine little gem!True to the evil genius series, this book is an exception to the completeness issue! Not only are the projects fully detailed, with carefully tested code that works without glitches, the author also takes the time to go over the basics of Pi as well, including getting up and running before the project phases. The book has something in it for everyone because of that, from beginners to advanced designers and hobbyists. As a roboticist and teacher, I'm using the Pi more and more in place of Arduino programs (called sketches) because the motor controls are much more like the most advanced robotics, which often use Linux. The Department of Defense uses Linux in some of their drones! VERY scalable system.A great way to learn not only Pi, but electronics, programming and much more, from grade school to graduate engineer. And in case you're new to Pi, many folks are actually making the cheapest PC's on the planet with this little monster, INCLUDING HDTV interfaces for their monitors! The (non profit educational) Pi developers were smart enough to include multi media, which is amazing for a chip this size. If you want to go "big time" you can even combine it seamlessly pin to pin with Arduino for automation, or Propeller for multi processing. Highly Recommended.

Some of the "Evil Genius" series better typifies the "evil" connotation than this book. However it is filled with real projects that will actually work and do real things. Not sure what is "evil" about this...The printing quality is mostly a problem in random number of the illustrations, especially the pictures and screen shots. Contrast and blurring makes it impossible to get any useful information out of them. And the size of some important illustrations is too small. For example, the "Project hardware layout" picture, figure 9-15 on page 121 is almost useless. A RaspberryPi is shown with a ribbon cable to a breakout board all sitting next to some other board that cannot be identified on top of what looks like more breakout board, perhaps all mounted on a Lexan or Plexiglas sheet. Considerable study of the text is needed to guess at the meaning of the picture, and I am certainly left with a concern that I am still missing something important.In the following chapter, "1-Wire Weather Station", many pictures are uselessly dark, but much of this can be "replaced" with web searches.Still, if you want to do real things with the RaspberryPi, here is a place to start. Perhaps the "evil genius" is that you will need to do a lot of outside research to complete some of these great projects. However, all of the projects are possible even for those of us who are neither evil or geniuses. However, don't start if you aren't determined to "git-er-done."

This is one of those things you get and wish you had gotten it last year. Not only does this book show you how to build and program the projects, it goes behind the scene so to speak, and tells you in plain English, what the components you are using, actually do and how they work. Most books either tell you, get "piece A" connect this way, load this, power it up and go. This book explains what you are going to do, how the main component you are building around, works, and why you have to do what to get results.In other words, it tells you not only how, but why, on projects. You could spend hours on the Internet, trying to find details on how to use things like a GPS with your RPi but here in one place, you not only find how to make it work, but HOW it works, along with the sites you need to get the tools to use it, when it's finished.Best of all, you don't have to be a "Genius" to use this, even if you're new to Raspberry Pi, you will easily follow along with these projects. The author writes in very easy to follow format. You will definitely learn while using this book.

This book speaks to my engineering instincts and builds a solid foundation. One star shy of a five star rating because some of the contents needs updating. The chapter about the robotic car (Boe Bot) isn’t complete with respect to instructions and is missing information about installing the library for controlling servo motors with a PCA9685 chip. The maker should be able to figure this but out with a little help from Google, but nevertheless the instructions should have been included in the book for consistency with the rest of the content. Notwithstanding this critique, I highly recommend this book for those who want to build a foundation than just a cool project.

Very good book. Easy to follow. Sometimes reads more like a college lecture than a project guide. (studied engineering in school and felt like I was in a lecture).A lot of the book requires you buy other components. Many of the projects I wasn't able to do because of those constraints.I wish it contained more programming languages instead of primarily python. Could have benefitted from a brief python syntax overview at the beginning. My background is mainly C/C++/Java/VHDL. None of which were really touched on

I gave this rating because of his easy style, well thought out approach to interfacing the RasPi.He explains why the things done in the book are done this way, with plenty of warnings that if YOU DO IT WRONG you will damage the RasPi.The software for the hardware is explained quite well, with links to other documentation for more advanced reading.No hard core maths or stuff to detract from an enjoyable learning experience.It would appeal well to the newbie who is capable, but a novice with this device.

This book is interesting but because it is mainly based on the older Pi hardware it should not be chosen if you have a Raspberry Pi 2.The style is also quite, er.. condescending.Better books exist, Simon Monk would be a good alternative author.

Not sure why it's for evil geniuses as the closest it got was a device to control your lights at home but was really good to give an alternative view on projects for the Pi. I already had books on how to set it up, write Python etc etc and wanted something more project-based to inside ideas. This book does exactly that, provides the code and instructions for how to do them and generally really useful

Well Written and the Projects are neatly presented. They are easy to follow and the book offers some great tips throughout. Pi has moved on since the book so if you have a later version Pi - this book is still 100% a good book to buy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Great book - gave this to the IT network manager in our school - someone I regard to have Jedi level geekness / nurdiness and he read the book - declared it "very useful" and said he even had to look a few things up. If you have have to buy a book to get Pi projects for a school moving over to computing curriculum then this is a good place to start.

Given as a gift to my husband with a raspberry pi and pored over with much hilarity. I think in retrospect that a book on python would have been more useful to get going, but the ideas provoked a lot of family discussion about projects and was a good introduction to the basic anatomy of the thing for my daughter.