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4 October 2018

EuroPython, PyCon UK and a John Pinner Award

I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to attend (and speak at) two great Python conferences – EuroPython and PyCon UK – (almost) every year since 2014. I’ve been to EuroPython in Berlin, Bilbao and Rimini, and this year it came to the UK – specifically, the beautiful city of Edinburgh. I presented a […]

11 January 2016

GPIO Zero: Developing a new friendly Python API for Physical Computing

For about the last 3 years, the de-facto method of accessing physical components via the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins has been a Python library called RPi.GPIO, created by Ben Croston, who originally built it to control his beer brewing process. Despite its humble beginnings in a personal hobby project, it’s ended up being used in […]

3 January 2015

Review of the Year 2014

Last December I started my job at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and this time last year, having just completed my first month, I wrote my review of 2013 and all the events which led up to that move. Here is a round-up of all that’s happened since then. Talks & Conferences This year I gave […]

26 June 2014

Linux Voice Interview with Raspberry Pi Education Team

Back in February at the Raspberry Jamboree, my colleagues Carrie Anne, Clive and I were interviewed by the Linux Voice team about Raspberry Pi‘s views on computing education. Linux Voice is a fantastic new free software magazine which was funded by a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo at the end of last year. I backed it as soon […]

5 January 2014

2013 in Review

This year I’ve learned lots, run events, helped mentor young people, contributed to open source, engaged in much community activity, made and developed some strong friendships and built myself a new career. OH Digital I began this year working as a web developer at OH Digital, having started there just two months before the previous Christmas. […]

9 November 2013

Pi Weekly – MVP, Evolution and My Dream Job

Pi Weekly is an email newsletter I run with fellow Raspberry Pi enthusiast Ryan Walmsley. Recently it occurred to me that for such a small project, it’s evolved a lot since we launched – and that it’s quite impressive that we launched it so soon after the idea came about, and how it landed me my […]

16 September 2013

Berlin 2013

I’ve heard lots lately about how cool Berlin is — my friend Martin goes there regularly and hangs out in coffee shops working on projects, and he really enjoys the atmosphere and culture around the city. Another friend Sam recently moved here, and he loves it too. There seemed to be a thriving tech scene, […]

21 April 2013

STEM Raspberry Jam Pilot

I organised an event with the STEMNET (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths Network) team at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), based on the Manchester Raspberry Jam I run monthly at Madlab. The STEM Raspberry Jam was to be a new activity the STEM Ambassador network could offer to schools, so we ran a […]

24 March 2013

Raspberry Jamboree 2013

Manchester recently held the first ever Raspberry Pi conference – Raspberry Jamboree, held at Manchester Central. It’s been a year since the launch of the Pi, and this event was to review what we did in the last year, and look forward to what we’re going to do this year and in the future. The […]

28 January 2013

Comprehension in Python

Python is a wonderful dynamic language offering various functional programming features, including standard library modules itertools and functools borrowed from Haskell and Standard ML. Some see it as the best of both worlds as not only can you perform complex tasks with these functional programming tools but you can do it using simple readable code […]

2 October 2012

Barcamp Blackpool 2012

This weekend was Barcamp Blackpool – held at the Norbreck Castle Hotel in North Blackpool. It’s the fourth event they’ve run since it kicked off in 2009 – and the second I’ve attended. Last year was great fun but I only stayed for the day – this time I stayed the night before and the […]

2 October 2012

Hero Kayakers Rescue Whitewater Dinghy Man

Last Wednesday, 26th September 2012, two friends and I took advantage of the rainfall and headed to the River Irwell in Bury to paddle from Nuttall Park to the Burrs Activity Centre. Upon arrival at the park the rain began again, and as we approached the bank to put on, the water was extremely high […]

9 September 2012

Manchester Raspberry Jam Continued

I’ve now hosted four Raspberry Jams in Manchester. I posted about the first and second, here’s a summary of what went on at III & IV. The August Manchester Raspberry Jam kicked off when Kat opened up the Madlab and I gave an opening talk about what had been going on in the news in […]

2 September 2012

Backflip

I did a backflip off a rock in to a river on a kayaking trip one day. My friend Leif took this picture using my cheap point-and-shoot camera, he somehow managed to capture this perfectly. The sky is photoshopped but the rest is true. Original here. It was on the River Lune in the Lake […]

Tags: backflip, kayak
18 July 2012

Manchester Raspberry Jam

I’ve now run two Raspberry Pi events in Manchester, affectionately known as the Raspberry Jam. The first in June, which was the first Raspberry Jam in the UK, and which featured on the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s website where we gained recognition for getting people together to share ideas, demonstrate what we’ve been doing with the […]

15 April 2012

Whisky Web

I’ve just been to Whisky Web, a language-agnostic web conference in Edinburgh organised by a group of local tech guys. It’s the first one they’ve run and it just came from the idea they had to get a bunch of web folk together for a fun conference and social gathering. Held in the heart of the […]

7 April 2012

Hack To The Future

The BBC wrote about Hack To The Future on their Research & Development blog, including a short video featuring their coverage of me explaining my nontransitive dice session! Also some screen time with Sam of Manchester Girl Geeks (who gave a brilliant keynote); Tom Crick (Cardiff Metropolitan University); and of course, organiser Alan O’Donahoe. I […]

1 April 2012

ASCII Bar Charts for Quick & Easy Visualisation

So you have some data. Let’s say it’s a record of the number of instances of some things. Let’s say it’s the number of movies you own, grouped by the year they were released. Let’s say you have those data in the form of a dictionary in Python, like so: The following loop will print […]

8 July 2011

Limerick 2011

[This is an extended version of an article I wrote for MSOR Connections magazine – which you can read online] During the final year of my combined honours degree in Mathematics and Computing at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) I received an invitation to a two-day Student Mathematical Modelling Workshop at the University of Limerick in […]

15 January 2010

Midnight Ice Climb Up Helvellyn

Some friends & I decided to make the most of the snow by heading to the Lake District for a midnight mission up Helvellyn one Friday evening in mid-January. I was due to return to Manchester from spending the Christmas holidays at home, and as the mountain passes over the peak district from Sheffield were closed due […]

27 July 2008

Pyrenees 2008

I have just returned from a WVU Summer Trip to the Pyrenees! The Pyrenees are the mountains that border France and Spain – we were on the Spanish side, staying at a lovely campsite in the picturesque town of Torla in a valley on the outskirts of the Ordesa National Park. My journey there was rather easy-going; […]

17 December 2006

Millers Dale Viaduct

Sam Doyle got us the licence to do ‘rope training’ on the viaduct at Millers Dale, so we took the chance to have a go at abseiling off the side and towards the river. Miles led the evening and him, Burdy, Bob and Batley were in charge of belaying. Basically, what you had to do was […]