Alright folks, let me tell you about this little project I messed around with recently – I’m calling it “pi yacht”. Don’t get too excited, it’s not some fancy boat controlled by a Raspberry Pi, haha. It’s more like…a fun way to visualize some data using Raspberry Pi and some basic Python.
So, where did I start? Well, I had this CSV file lying around with some sensor data. Nothing too exciting, just temperature readings, humidity, and a few other things. I thought, “Hey, instead of staring at spreadsheets, let’s make something kinda cool out of this.”
First things first, I dusted off my trusty Raspberry Pi 4. I’ve got a bunch of these things lying around, they’re super handy for little projects like this. I flashed it with the latest Raspberry Pi OS (make sure to update and upgrade!). Then, I installed the usual suspects: Python 3, pip, and a couple of libraries I knew I’d need. Specifically:
- pandas: For easily handling the CSV data. Super clutch.
- matplotlib: Because, gotta visualize!
Installing these was a breeze: pip install pandas matplotlib.
Next, the coding! I started a new Python script, let’s call it pi_*. I imported the libraries and loaded my CSV file into a pandas DataFrame.
Now, for the “yacht” part. I didn’t actually have a 3D model or anything fancy. What I did was use matplotlib to create a simple line graph representing the data. Think of it as the yacht’s “performance” over time. I mapped the sensor values to different aspects of the graph, like:
- Temperature -> Y-axis position.
- Humidity -> Color of the line. Hotter = redder, drier = bluer.
I messed around with the plot styles, added some labels, and made it look somewhat presentable. Nothing award-winning, but good enough for my needs.
Here’s where the Raspberry Pi comes in more directly. I wanted this visualization to update automatically. So, I added a simple loop that would:
- Read the latest data from the CSV.
- Update the matplotlib plot.
- Save the plot as an image file (e.g., ).
- Sleep for a few seconds.
To display the image, I used feh, a lightweight image viewer. I set it up to automatically refresh the image every few seconds. This gave the illusion of a live, updating “yacht” performance display.
Finally, I set the script to run on boot. This way, whenever the Raspberry Pi boots up, it automatically starts generating the visualization.
Is it the most sophisticated project? Nah. But it was a fun afternoon project. It took some sensor data that was just sitting there and turned it into something visual and (sort of) interesting. Plus, it gave me a chance to play around with matplotlib again, which is always a good thing.
The cool thing is, you could take this idea and run with it! Maybe you have some real-time sensor data you want to visualize. Or maybe you want to create a more elaborate “yacht” model. The possibilities are endless!
Anyway, that’s my “pi yacht” project in a nutshell. Hope you found it interesting. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find another random project to tinker with.
