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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Raspberry Pi

Pi For a Pie: element14 Launches Raspberry Pi Smart Kitchen Design Challenge

Could you use Raspberry Pi to make actual pie? We could soon find out.

That’s because popular engineering community Element14 has launched the Pi Chef design challenge asking its community to come up with new ideas for tech-driven kitchen products using the Raspberry Pi.

Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community and Social Media for element14, told EENewsEurope: “We have asked our community members to create a variety of projects with the Raspberry Pi, from IoT devices for the home to science-fiction inspired gadgets. For this competition we are focussing on food.”

While the challenge is open to pretty much any kitchen concept that utilizes a Raspberry Pi as the “main ingredient”, Element14 offers a few suggestions such as a ‘Fridge-to-sofa IoT beer delivery system’, ‘interactive cook book’ and ‘Automatic cocktail machine’.

The contest, which is taking applications until December 1st, will then give the top 15 applicants a Raspberry Pi design kit that has over $200 worth of Raspberry Pi gear.  From that point on, the finalists will be asked to spend the next 11 weeks blogging as they work through the various projects assigned by the judges.

The community has a Raspberry Pi themed challenge once per year, and it’s interesting to me that they chose to focus on the kitchen this year. I’m intrigued to see what some of the submittals look like and to see some of the content that spills out of the finalists blog posts.

One of the first applicants ideas? An IoT connected crock pot.

Small but Powerful: Automating the Smart Kitchen with the Raspberry Pi

Ever since the first credit-card sized model was released in 2012, the Raspberry Pi line of sub-$100 Linux devices has defied all expectations. Its owners have chained the devices together to construct powerful supercomputers and used single devices to drive home automation and security systems. The Raspberry Pi is also a great way to inexpensively automate a smart kitchen, and there are easy-to-follow DIY recipes for doing so online.

First-generation Raspberry Pi devices were nowhere near as powerful and flexible as today’s models. The first generation had no Wi-Fi capabilities, minimal memory and a mid-range CPU. Fast-forward to today, though, and Raspberry Pi devices are as powerful and capable as many personal computers, but available at a fraction of the cost. Their low cost is partly due to the fact that these devices run free and open source Linux distributions instead of expensive, proprietary operating systems.

The Raspberry Pi community is waking up to the promise of artificial intelligence, as well, which holds promise for smart kitchens. Some Raspberry Pi owners are building their own AI-driven voice assistants, and Google has open sourced its AI-driven Google Assistant SDK, which can be used with Pi devices.

For several years now, Raspberry Pi community members have been publishing their DIY instructions for automating smart kitchen devices and processes. Many of these tutorials are available via video, and here are just a few examples:

Controlling kitchen lights with a mobile phone and the Pi:

Controlling kitchen lights with phone and Raspberry Pi Zero

Automating ambient lighting with the Pi:

Make your own Ambient Lighting with the Raspberry Pi Zero

Using a Raspberry Pi and touchscreen for an eye-level recipe manager

 

On the forums at RaspberryPi.org, you can inquire about the many other smart kitchen concepts that leverage these devices.

Meanwhile, if you want to dive deep into automating the smart kitchen with the Raspberry Pi, a guide called Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi is available. It details how to automate everything from curtains to music to lights working with a Pi device in conjunction with either a laptop or smartphone.

“Aside from the Arduino, the Raspberry Pi probably has the largest community for any single piece of hardware currently on the market,” notes author Steven Goodwin. “The cost of a Raspberry Pi means that it’s no longer unreasonable to have one (or two) computers in every room in the house…It is also worth considering that the Raspberry Pi is easier and cheaper to hack than any existing gadget off the shelf.”

Raspberry Pi devices are now essentially as powerful as fully stocked personal computers, but diminutive in size. One or several of them can give you flexible options for automating processes in your smart kitchen.