10 Mind-Blowing Projects Made With A Tiny $35 Computer

These may not look as cool as the wearable computers that Google is whipping up, but they did win developer Jarred Glickstein first prize in the the Instructables Raspberry Pi contest last month.

The total project cost him $382, including a wireless keyboard and mouse. His glasses are the monitor. Together, it's a fully functional PC.

A lot of people use Pi to run old-fashioned arcade games. But Darren J and his buddies took it one step further and built a whole coin-operated video-arcade cabinet, complete with buttons and joysticks. It wasn't easy.

Here's a picture of the arcade cabinet running the vintage game "Track And Field."

A commercially available Pi arcade cabinet is in the works thanks to this Kickstarter project.

If you'd rather carry your retro video game in your pocket, then the Pi project from a hacker named Spritesmods is for you.

It plays old-school arcade games on a tiny 2.4" display.

A professional-quality dolly for taking time-lapse images can set you back $650 or more. But Rick Adam built one controlled by a Raspberry Pi for pennies on the dollar.

He's posted instructions on a website showing anyone how to do it using cheap, easily obtained materials.

If you drive an older car that doesn't have a big infotainment system, there's a fix for that. Quite a few people have built car computers from Pi.

Here's one with a touch screen as shown off by "Bruschetta78" on YouTube. 

It connects with the car's stereo system, too.

Dave Akerman and his buddies used Pi to build a high-altitude balloon. That's a weather balloon all tricked out with GPS, camera, and other sensors.

They send it up into the atmosphere to take photos from space and collect weather data.

Then they chase it down with their cars as it floats back to earth. It's the hobby version of being a storm chaser. They call this hobby "HABing."

A hobbyist who calls himself Fanquake used Pi to make a Bitcoin "wallet."

Bitcoin is a digital currency that can be used instead of dollars or euros to buy stuff on the Internet at websites that accept it.

Since Bitcoins exist only in the digital world, and you can't store them in a regular bank, you need a computer to act as your wallet. Pi's credit-card-sized form factor makes it perfect for the job.

A vegetable-based instrument? Yes. Using Pi, a touch sensor, audio amplifier and a handmade wooden box, Scott Garner invented the Beet Box.

It's a "a simple instrument that allows users to play drum beats by touching actual beets," he explains and he's posted a cool video to demonstrate.

The only thing better than the Beet Box is the number of puns it lends itself to. You can't beet that.

Cambridge engineering student Jordan Burgess used Pi to convert his aging speaker system "into the 21st century by enabling wireless streaming of music to it," he explains.

His $35 Pi system was an alternative to buying Airport Express routers and speakers ($80–$500) or buying an Apple TV ($100) to hook up the old speakers.

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