Suggestions On Simple, Yet Fun Project For A Complete Novice ?

[NobodyNew1]

Hello Everyone !!

The title says it all. I'm a complete noob, but want to learn fun little things to do with this phone. I've had the phone sitting in its box for months ( Manjaro Edition ), but now I really want to do something with it. It took me some time for this to sink in, just bc it doesn't work as a phone doesn't mean it still isn't a tool that I can use to educate myself and grow my knowledge.
So, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions of beginner projects that I could attempt and complete with this device, please share you thoughts.
Thanks !!

[gamerminstrel]

Hello Everyone !!

The title says it all. I'm a complete noob, but want to learn fun little things to do with this phone. I've had the phone sitting in its box for months ( Manjaro Edition ), but now I really want to do something with it. It took me some time for this to sink in, just bc it doesn't work as a phone doesn't mean it still isn't a tool that I can use to educate myself and grow my knowledge.
So, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions of beginner projects that I could attempt and complete with this device, please share you thoughts.
Thanks !!

If you know the bare basics of programming but nothing about making an app for the Pinephone, you're about in the same boat I am. If you want to make something designed for Manjaro/Plasma Mobile, the best starting point would probably be going through the tutorials included here:

https://develop.kde.org/docs/kirigami/

The tutorials will walk you through making a basic app or two, with links to many more good tutorials after. And if you get stuck, the KDE Plasma Mobile Matrix channel has been pretty friendly to my noob questions so far.

Personally I don't know what kind of apps I want to make yet, but you can't build anything without knowing how to use the tools first.

[MtnSk8]

Playing around with the sensor outputs may provide some inspiration.
   https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php...re:sensors

Or maybe connect an esp32 camera to the pogo pins and have pphone SMS or Call you when it "sees" something that it's taught to recognize. 

An SDR dongle might be fun, you could retrieve weather satellite images for example.

Using the pinephone as a phone is the project I've been working on but that is getting boring now because mostly it all works fine on mobian.  
So:
I too am looking forward to the cool projects most of all! For example pinephone as a mycroft server (with facial expressions displayed on the screen). How cool would it be?:  flash an SD card, insert and boot pinephone and Boom! A Mycroft Digital Assistant smiling at you ready to learn new skills.

Thanks for the topic.

Cheers!

[RTP]

Hello Everyone !!

The title says it all. I'm a complete noob, but want to learn fun little things to do with this phone. I've had the phone sitting in its box for months ( Manjaro Edition ), but now I really want to do something with it. It took me some time for this to sink in, just bc it doesn't work as a phone doesn't mean it still isn't a tool that I can use to educate myself and grow my knowledge.
So, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions of beginner projects that I could attempt and complete with this device, please share you thoughts.
Thanks !!

I second @MtnSk8 in looking at SDR dongle as a suggestion. They are super affordable to start out with and can be had for a mere $10. I did a video on setting up RTL-SDR on the Pinephone: https://youtu.be/ffEGdbXt2Qo  SDR can help you learn more about wireless security, discovering odd things about your devices, mapping out nearby aircraft flights, retrieve live satellite images of earth, even recording the signals from your garage door opener to copy and then use something like Arduino to copy the signals onto a transmitter. You can even use a single board GPIO pin as a transmitter for trying these things out.

I may be a bit partial but radio is a bit magical. And even if you end up doing nothing else it can be fun to listen to First responders/CB Radio operators/Ham operators from your Pinephone.

Getting SDR setup on Pinephone is one of those things a beginner can get into and with Pine64 coming out with LoRa based options for Pinephone, learning a bit more on radio could give you a headstart on some things. 

Look at any number of Linux and/or single board computer projects and imagine how a handheld device like the Pinephone can integrate many of the things we may normally setup a computer for right into your hands. And if not radio maybe take a look at MQTT and play with different devices to receive sensor/data updates to your Pinephone.

Lots of options out there. Try searching github for SBC projects and apply/edit to Pinephone. Goodluck!

[NobodyNew1]

Hello Everyone !!

The title says it all. I'm a complete noob, but want to learn fun little things to do with this phone. I've had the phone sitting in its box for months ( Manjaro Edition ), but now I really want to do something with it. It took me some time for this to sink in, just bc it doesn't work as a phone doesn't mean it still isn't a tool that I can use to educate myself and grow my knowledge.
So, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions of beginner projects that I could attempt and complete with this device, please share you thoughts.
Thanks !!

If you know the bare basics of programming but nothing about making an app for the Pinephone, you're about in the same boat I am. If you want to make something designed for Manjaro/Plasma Mobile, the best starting point would probably be going through the tutorials included here:

https://develop.kde.org/docs/kirigami/

The tutorials will walk you through making a basic app or two, with links to many more good tutorials after. And if you get stuck, the KDE Plasma Mobile Matrix channel has been pretty friendly to my noob questions so far.

Personally I don't know what kind of apps I want to make yet, but you can't build anything without knowing how to use the tools first.

Awesome !! Thank you for the information. I'll check all of this out, maybe this will be a starting point for me. Thanks !!