These 3 Raspberry Pi projects show that SBC fans are something special

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Key findings

  • Jeff Geerling achieved an impressive overclock of 3.4 GHz on a Raspberry Pi 5, setting a new world record.
  • A Raspberry Pi 5 had water cooling with hard tubing added as a visually impressive project, although this was called overkill.
  • An AI-powered talking plant project inspired by Little Shop of Horrors used a Raspberry Pi to provide data in a creative way.



We love covering SBC projects on XDA. The best part is that you can do a huge variety of things with an SBC, especially the Raspberry Pi. We've covered some amazing and innovative Raspberry Pi projects in the past, from the weird to the wonderful.

When I'm looking for a cool SBC project to highlight, I always come across a project that is truly special. People then wonder why the inventor decided to do it in the first place. Very often the inventor will justify their build by saying they did it “because they could,” and sometimes that's the best reason to do something with a Pi. So here are some projects that show how the community can really do something special when they put their minds to something.



It didn't turn the Raspberry Pi into a powerhouse, but it's still cool

Raspberry Pi WR Overclocking - Features 2
Photo credit: Jeff Geerling

When someone uses a Raspberry Pi for their projects, they usually don't plan on really pushing it to its limits. They give it a fairly simple task and let it do its job with the default settings. In fact, overclocking the Raspberry Pi brings minimal benefits, but at the cost of high power consumption, so if you want more performance, it's not really worth the effort.

But as you'll soon learn, sometimes SBC owners do things because they want to. For some, pushing that tiny, credit card-sized computer to its limits is a great little project.

Such is the case with Jeff Geerling, who has been dueling with other people to break the world record for the fastest Raspberry Pi. He managed to take the top spot by pushing the tiny board to an impressive 3.4GHz, and while he fully admits that no one should feel the need to push their SBC to the limits like that, he still finds chasing that record entertaining in his own way.


A breadboard connected to a Raspberry Pi 5 with microcontrollers lying around it

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Maybe Jeff Geering can take a leaf out of his book for his next record attempt

A water-cooled Raspberry Pi 5

Image credit: retro3dfx / Reddit

Speaking of cooling, how about a full-fledged water cooling system for a Raspberry Pi 5, complete with hard tubing? User etro3dfx on Reddit wanted to see how cool he could keep his Pi 5 by attaching a cooling solution that's even larger than the Pi itself.

To etro3dfx's credit, this did keep the board cool. They report that the Pi 5's temperature never exceeded 40°C under heavy load. However, they also admitted that a 2-water cooling system is overkill for something like a Raspberry Pi and any other cooling solution would have done the job just fine. When asked why they did this, they said they did it because they wanted to, and we can understand why. It's certainly a visually impressive project, even if it's pretty redundant.


A Raspberry Pi 5 connected to multiple peripherals

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Practical? Not really. Cool? Very much so.

Because of their small size, Raspberry Pis are ideal for monitoring sensors in the field. We've seen this when researchers used Raspberry Pis to keep an eye on bees and make sure they're healthy. Just connect the sensors to the Pi, let it read its environments, then send the data back to a central server or computer – it's super easy.

Sometimes people add a little flair to the process. For example, instead of just sending the data home, why not let the Raspberry Pi remember everything? Then wire up a microphone, a speaker, and load an AI LLM onto the board. Voila – now you have a sensor that you can ask physically for data.


Such is the case with this cool plant-based project that keeps an eye on soil quality and temperature. However, instead of sending the data to a central hub, you have to talk to the plant and ask it how it's currently feeling. The AI ​​model then collects all the recorded data and finds a way to represent it in a human-like way. So instead of reporting a low temperature reading from last night, the plant tells you that it felt a bit chilly the night before.

So why go to the trouble of making the plant talk when you can just read the data? It's simple: the inventor just really liked the film. Little Shop of Horrors and wanted to do something similar to Audrey II. Certainly redundant – but it turned this otherwise run-of-the-mill project into something fun and creative.


The ARM64 version of Windows 11 runs on the Raspberry Pi 5

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Sometimes the best reason to do something is because it would be cool

SBCs are really useful, and it's easy to assume that they're just for doing practical and meaningful projects. But where's the fun in that? Sometimes the best and most inspiring projects come from someone throwing practicality aside and doing something just because they can. And that's why the SBC community is really special.

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