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Review: Trying on a Sense HAT
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
This week I would like to turn attention to a project which appeals to me, or perhaps more specifically, to the teenage version me who was fascinated by computers and what weird tricks I could make them do. Younger me was enthralled by the creative sandbox a computing environment provided and I recently got to put aside my practical, professional side and rekindle some of that spark. The conduit to my experience was a device called the Sense HAT.
For those of you unfamiliar with the name Sense HAT, it's a computer accessory about the size of a small playing card. The card attaches to a single-board computer, such as a Raspberry Pi, via GPIO pins. The HAT contains an array of sensors which can detect light, temperature, humidity, magnetic direction, air pressure, and acceleration. The HAT is also equipped with a small LED display (8x8 pixels in size) and a tiny joystick about the size of my smallest fingernail.
The Sense HAT retails for around $30 USD and is designed to snap into place on compatible single-board computers. As with many Raspberry Pi add-ons, the HAT is accompanied by a Python library which makes it possible to quickly and easily access the HAT's features with a few lines of Python code.