Chapter 7 Physical Computing with the Sense HAT 153THE OFFICIAL RASPBERRY PI BEGINNER’S GUIDE
While Ed and Izzy are a little far away for you to use them yourself, the same Sense HAT
hardware can be found here on Earth, too, at all Raspberry Pi retailers – and if you don’t want
to buy a Sense HAT right now, you can simulate one in software!
REAL OR SIMULATED
This chapter is best partnered with a real Sense HAT attached to a Raspberry Pi’s GPIO
header, but anyone who doesn’t have one can skip the section titled ‘Installing the Sense HAT‘
and simply try the projects out in the Sense HAT Emulator; they’ll work just as well!Introducing the Sense HAT
The Sense HAT is a powerful, multifunctional add-on for the Raspberry Pi. As well as an
8×8 matrix of 64 red, green, and blue (RGB) programmable LEDs which can be controlled
to produce any colour from a range of millions, the Sense HAT includes a five-way joystick
controller and six on-board sensors.