Raspberry Pi Sense Hat (8×8 LED matrix)

Description:

Raspberry Pi Sense HAT for Astro Pi

The Sense HAT from the folks at Raspberry Pi is an add-on board that fits perfectly on top of your Pi to provide you with plenty of sensing functionality. This means that the Sense HAT is great for learning about environmental conditions, particularly within space science. Sense HAT + Pi Board = Astro Pi.

What’s on-board the Pi Sense HAT?
•8 x 8, 16-bit LED display that outputs sense data via shapes, icons and messages
•Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) — essential for velocity, orientation and gravity measurement of a space craft, the IMU combines an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer into one chip

•  Barometric air pressure sensor (ST Micro LPS25H)
• Temperature sensor
• Humidity sensor
• 5-button joystick that serves as an on-board keyboard and mouse
• 3D Gyroscope
• Accelerometer (Yaw, Pitch & Roll)
• Magnetometer

The Raspberry Pi Foundation have also created a Python library providing easy access to everything on the board.

Sensing Elements Technical Specification:

Pressure / Temperature (ST Micro LPS25H)
– 24-bit pressure measurement resolution (260hPa to 1260hPa)
– 16-bit temperature measurement resolution (0-125°C)
Datasheet

Humidity / Temperature (ST Micro HTS221)
– 16-bit humidity measurement resolution (0-100% relative humidity)
– 16-bit temperature measurement resolution (0-60°C)
Datasheet

Acceleration/Gyroscope/Magnetic field (ST Micro LSM9DS1)
– 9 degrees of freedom (X, Y, Z independent axes for all sensors)
– ±16 g acceleration measurement range
– ±16 gauss magnetometer measurement range
– ±2000 dps (degrees per second) gyroscope measurement range
Each of these measurement channels has 16 bits of resolution.
Datasheet

All of these sensors have features for periodic sampling of sensor values, complete with internal FIFO storage. The LPS25H and HTS221 have maximum sample rates of 25 per second, the LSM9DS1 has a maximum sample rate of 952Hz

LED Matrix
The LED matrix is driven by a combination of a constant-current LED driver and an Atmel ATTiny88 running a custom firmware that delivers an 8×8 display with 15-bit resolution RGB colour. 

                
How do I get started with the Pi Sense HAT?
Once the HAT is assembled with your Pi board, you will need to install Astro Pi software. You can now start to program — the Raspberry Pi Foundation provide great examples to start programming with such as showing a rainbow of colours on the LED display or rotating the LED display. Channel the Tim Peake in you…

See https://www.raspberrypi.org/learning/astro-pi-guide/

Note: You will need eight M2.5 screws and four hexagonal standoffs to attach the HAT to your Pi