Chapter 1
Introducing Physical Computing
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding how to use small computers
Using a Raspberry Pi to sense the environment around you
Making your computer do physical things
We think it's more difficult to learn about the software (Python) than the hardware, which is why in the first several hundred pages of this book we focus on showing you how to program in Python. But now it's time for you to find out how to make your computer do something with Python. Making your computer do mechanical things — and interact with the world around you — is called physical computing!
To download the code for this chapter, go to www.dummies.com/go/pythonaiofd3e.
In this chapter, we hook up various sensors and motors to a Raspberry Pi computer for the computer to control and read information about the environment, such as turning on an LED or reading the temperature, all using Python. Although the voltages we use — 3.3V and 5V — are not particularly dangerous to people, hooking up things incorrectly can burn out the computer or sensors. For this reason, follow these two rules ...
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