Vote for the top 20 Raspberry Pi projects in The MagPi!
Although this Thursday will see the release of issue 49 of The MagPi, we’re already hard at work putting together our 50th issue spectacular. As part of this issue we’re going to be covering 50 of the best Raspberry Pi projects ever and we want you, the community, to vote for the top 20.
Below we have listed the 30 projects that we think represent the best of the best. All we ask is that you vote for your favourite. We will have a few special categories with some other amazing projects in the final article, but if you think we’ve missed out something truly excellent, let us know in the comments. Here’s the list so you can remind yourselves of the projects, with the poll posted at the bottom.
From paper boats to hybrid sports cars
- SeeMore – a huge sculpture of 256 Raspberry Pis connected as a cluster
- BeetBox – beets (vegetable) you can use to play sick beats (music)
- Voyage – 300 paper boats (actually polypropylene) span a river, and you control how they light up
- Aquarium – a huge aquarium with Pi-powered weather control simulating the environment of the Cayman Islands
- ramanPi – a Raman spectrometer used to identify different types of molecules
- Joytone – an electronic musical instrument operated by 72 backlit joysticks
- Internet of LEGO – a city of LEGO, connected to and controlled by the internet
- McMaster Formula Hybrid – a Raspberry Pi provides telemetry on this hybrid racing car
- PiGRRL – Adafruit show us how to make an upgraded, 3D-printed Game Boy
- Magic Mirror – check out how you look while getting some at-a-glance info about your day
Dinosaurs, space, and modern art
- 4bot – play a game of Connect 4 with a Raspberry Pi robot
- Blackgang Chine dinosaurs – these theme park attractions use the diminutive Pi to make them larger than life
- Sound Fighter – challenge your friend to the ultimate Street Fight, controlled by pianos
- Astro Pi – Raspberry Pis go to space with code written by schoolkids
- Pi in the Sky – Raspberry Pis go to near space and send back live images
- BrewPi – a microbrewery controlled by a microcomputer
- LED Mirror – a sci-fi effect comes to life as you’re represented on a wall of lights
- Raspberry Pi VCR – a retro VCR is turned into a pink media-playing machine
- #OZWall – Contemporary art in the form of many TVs from throughout the ages
- #HiutMusic – you choose the music for a Welsh denim factory through Twitter
Robots and arcade machines make the cut
- CandyPi – control a jelly bean dispenser from your browser, without the need to twist the dial
- Digital Zoetrope – still images rotated to create animation, updated for the 21st century
- LifeBox – create virtual life inside this box, and watch it adapt and survive
- Coffee Table Pi – classy coffee table by name, arcade cabinet by nature. Tea and Pac-Man, anyone?
- Raspberry Pi Notebook – this handheld Raspberry Pi is many people’s dream machine
- Pip-Boy 3000A – turn life into a Bethesda RPG with this custom Pip-Boy
- Mason Jar Preserve – Mason jars are used to preserve things, so this one is a beautiful backup server to preserve your data
- Pi Glass – Google Glass may be gone, but you can still make your own amazing Raspberry Pi facsimile
- DoodleBorg – a powerful PiBorg robot that can tow a caravan
- BigHak – a Big Trak that is truly big: it’s large enough for you to ride in
Now you’ve refreshed your memory of all these amazing projects, it’s time to vote for the one you think is best!
[socialpoll id=”2382936″]
The vote is running over the next two weeks, and the results will be in The MagPi 50. We’ll see you again on Thursday for the release of the excellent MagPi 49: don’t miss it!
47 comments
Damien
So many amazing projects to choose from. I’ll be sure to bookmark these for future projects.
AndrewS
Do I even want to know what JLP is doing in that GIF? ;-)
Clive Lambert-Hutchinson
Briliant project and great to see future engineers so fired up
john
ops no way to change your vote!
Roy
Voted by mistake, I thought I was going to ‘see more’ info. However I did vote for the one I wanted so it’s OK.
Michael Teeuw
I love the fact that the Magic Mirror is nominated, but I really dont understand why this version of the Mirror is nominated in stead of the original project. You even mention the original Magic Mirror project but continue to nominate one of the copies. While the original project is a real open source community project: http://magicmirror.builders & http://forum.magicmirror.builders – Nonetheless, Thanks for the mention.
Mike W
Michael,
I agree that your original project should be on the list!
My wife and I have a “personalized” version of your mirror in our guest bathroom, 44″ monitor in portrait mode behind an 80% reflective mirror with gesture sensing, and it’s the first place everyone goes to check it out!
We’ve added some animated images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and DSCOVR Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera plus live weather radar (we live in Oklahoma USA, lots of tornados).
Thanks for your work!
David Pride
Some projects link to RPi project feature page, some link to project’s own website and some link to magazine that project was featured in. Have all the projects listed been featured on RPi site? Would it be simpler for reader if links went to same place – just a suggestion! (magazine pdf sadly takes ages to load on crappy mobile connection too!)
All amazing projects too – simply awesome when you see them all listed together.
Elfen
Too many projects, not enough brain to choose wisely with…
I would say the Astro Pi would be one of my leading choices. As for the others, I would have to decide later.
Helen Booth
This is great fun and catches the attention of children as well as adult nerds!
Robert Fey
Great idea, great project!
Can only leave you with stars in your eyes!
Nick Smith
Seems a bit cheeky to nominate my own project… but it would be wonderful to see it listed in the top 50! :D
DIY 5 Node Cluster of Raspberry Pi 3s
http://climbers.net/sbc/diy-raspberry-pi-3-cluster/
Bernd54Albrecht
Without a doubt all valueable and challenging projects! I personally prefer the 3-dimensional ones. Dan Akerman’s photos are fantastic, followed by the involvement of so many pupils in the Astro Pi project. Looking forward to the outcome in MagPi issue #50
David Brinkman
i will vote for the magic mirror!
Jozé Mann
So do I!
Caroline van Dijk
Wow, I vote for Magic Mirror!
TNT
Why isn’t Mycroft on that list?
https://mycroft.ai/
Did y’all forget it has a Raspberry Pi 3 at the heart of it?
Rob Zwetsloot
We’ll definitely keep it in mind (as it is great) but we’re not really putting commercial products up on this list
pd
Please denote links to PDFs.
Adding the page number for the project linked would also be helpful.
Dan
Another project that should have made it:
http://dakboard.com
An elegant, wifi connected wall display for your photos, calendar, news and weather!
Liz Upton
We prefer it if people who are talking about their own products say so up front, Dakboard fella! (As Rob says, we’re not featuring commercial products in this list.)
Dan
Ah, understood. Thanks!
AlexY
This MagicMirror https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror project is my vote
David
No love for the Twitter Bot? :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA7EzHmlEz4
Patho
I vote for http://www.brewpi.com
John Wade
I vote MagicMirror
DJAkbar2016
I’ll just go ahead and nominate my own little project that I just finished this week. It’s a nice little weekend built and surely easy to recreate:
https://youtu.be/DNXssI4LuMc
But thanks for this list! It’s very hard to choose a winner. And very hard to choose what to attempt to build next.
Jack Chaney
In my opinion, it is no contest. Astro-Pi project providing an opportunity for elementary and middle school students to have a project run on the ISS cannot be compared to anything. By creating a gateway to such high achievement, it gave these students unimaginable perspective on what they could do. Removing limitations to resources opens the flood gates to what can be imagined.
telekrmor
What about Pi-hole?
gmon
I’m guessing they left out Pi-Hole because this is a blog that depends on advertising.
Liz Upton
Two points here: as we’ve said twice in this thread already, commercial projects are exempt here. And this blog (this whole website) has never carried any advertising: that’s something we feel very strongly about indeed.
(Shortest-lived conspiracy theory ever. Well done.)
Dan Schaper
Just a small point of clarification, I do appreciate the fact that commercial projects are exempt, but we are not (and I do identify myself in my post as a volunteer developer for the project,) a commercial endeavor. We are completely FOSS, our source is on GitHub, there is no requirement for payment, we do accept donations as do other projects, and have actually been approached by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in regards to having our project showcased after AdaFruit did a live demonstration of it. We were asked to change our logo as it was in violation, and we immediately did as requested. We even had our logo approved by your staff.
So, no conspiracy theories, we know the RPF is not an advertiser, other than the MagPi (which is an awesome outreach, even without the free Zero on the cover!) We understand this current blog post is for hardware projects, and that fact is a little confusing, as there seems to be a number of nominations for software that Rob is clarifying as they are posted.
Thank you very much for the tremendous contribution to both the education and the maker market with the landmark Raspberry Pi!
Dan Schaper
Not to toot our own horn (Disclaimer: I’m a volunteer developer on the project,) but reddit seems to like us at the Pi-hole. https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/50c6vl/whats_your_favorite_pi_project_of_all_time/d72wclc
Rob Zwetsloot
We do have a separate category for software so thanks for nominating it!
Dan Schaper
Beautiful! Casting my vote now then for my favorite Project from the list. Picking just one is tough, though…
Gary Littlemore
No ‘RPi Cam Web Interface’ in that list. :-(
The biggest forum post with both replies and views and it doesn’t even get a mention.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=63276
Rob Zwetsloot
As mentioned above, software is in a separate category
John Wade
Here’s my vote:
https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror
Lahcene
I really found it magic, thi mirror.
David Mitchell
Magic Mirror gets my vote, such a great project with so many possibilities. The community is great too!
Andy Proctor
What a shame mine didn’t make it. Great to see all those fantastic projects. The Pi is certainly getting people creating! http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30588704
Sue Thompson
4bot gets my vote. Intriguing project.
John
I voted for the Astro pi project as it had so many young people contribute to it`s programes.
veryaner
I vote MagicMirror
Luca Armellini
I vote MagicMirror!
Gordon Buch
It’s a shame that projects like Amibian 1.3, recalBox 4.0 or RetroPie 4.0 can’t be voted for. I understand that these are software-only projects, but without them, the Pi3 wouldn’t sell like hotcakes in 2016. It’s emulation that sells the Pi in the first place. Just a reminder that software-only projects are important, too ;)
Wayne Keenan
Is it too late to add my open source ‘VR Zero’ project (Virtual Reality on the Pi in Python) ?
http://thebubbleworks.com/waynes-bubble/2016/9/15/vr-zero-python-vr-on-the-raspberrypi
All the best
Wayne