How to Make a Raspberry Pi Laptop with a Discontinued Moto Lapdock

Introduction

Update 2/27/17 -- To clarify, this project uses the Raspberry Pi 1 Model B

The Raspberry Pi is a cheap, multi-purpose Linux computer great for education and maker projects. It is pretty bare-bones so if you are not careful you can end up with a rat's nest of cables just to turn it on and experiment. A solution that can turn the Pi into a compact laptop-style setup is to use a Motorola Atrix or Bionic Lapdock, originally designed to dock with their line of Android phones. But why limit to a particular phone? A Lapdock is simply a nicely-packaged group of components available via USB and HDMI that you would end up connecting to your Pi separately anyway:

1. Display (1366 x 768)
2. Keyboard
3. Trackpad
4. USB hub
5. Stereo speakers
6. Portable battery pack
7. Power supply

Raspberry Pi with Lapdock in action

An Arduino-based synthesizer

One of the first projects I made with the Arduino was this synth called the "Auduino".  It consists of five potentiometers wired to the five analog inputs and one digital PWM output used for audio.  The code came directly from the project site.  Check it out in action:

Let's get some kids some clean water for my birthday

Since I just started posting here, I may as well start off by plugging charity: water, to whom I have donated my birthday this year.

I'm not jumping in a cold lake or running across the country, I've simply decided to donate my birthday presents to this charity. Maybe other people are looking for a good cause as well? Let's get some kids a source of clean water.

Please visit mschaus's fundraiser where you can donate until Oct 10, 2013.

Hello, world!

This blog will be a collection of my projects that I feel contain enough lessons learned to be worth sharing, or maybe they just ended up interesting.  Either way, your feedback is welcome and I hope someone out there will take a project to the next level.

Expect topics to include Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and improvements to stuff using things like Sugru or maybe InstaMorph.  Also some car and bicycle projects, other collections of useful info, and if you're lucky, a classic mschaus diatribe.

-mschaus