Hello Element14 Community,
Very unexpectedly, early Christmas present arrived to my home about hour before I had to leave for about week-long holidays with family. UPS guy come exactly at time. I received Raspberry Pi 5 for Ask Element14 activity on forum. I posted image, short video and link to my old dumb/fun project which automated opening storage box. It is likely my shortest Element14 "competition" entry yet. Even more interestingly, it was considered winning entry, so I received flagship Raspberry Pi 5 as a reward. Since I had to complete packing suitcase and leave my flat soon after receiving it, I did not power it yet, but this part will definitely come after Christmas holidays. While I currently do not know exactly what I will use it for, it will likely undergone some testing first and then replace my main Raspberry Pi 4 server, which nowadays serve mostly software function and runs several simple servers like webpage with button to send WoL packets to my wake up main PC when I am out of home (for example, this Christmas holidays). It also continuously downloads and saves BBC Radio stream for listening later and offline, and few more bots which periodically downloads some pages and send me email when something new occur there. I planned to upgrade software of this pi (4), because it still runs on Raspbian based on Debian 12, but it seems that I will upgrade both software and hardware at once.
Here is photo of Raspberry I received:
Interestingly enough this is not the only package that UPS guy brought to me. Other package is finisher prize for Würth WL-ICLEDs Design Challenge. I asked for some alternate prize there and Element14, as always, did their best job of getting it for me. Before showing, I want to play with this one first. I will post separate blog post about it later after Christmas and new year after I come back from my holidays. So, stay tuned, enjoy holiday season and I wish you all best in 2026.
P.S. If you want to win your own free gift from Element14, join and answer this month question here. It is open up to 2nd of January 2026. Free Arduino is offered this time. As you can see from my entry, it can be as simple as writing 10 words and sharing one picture.
