The Raspberry Pi

Looking into learning programming or teaching younger generations how to program?  The Raspberry Pi is here to help! The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit – card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse.  It was developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of stimulating the teaching of basic computer science in schools. The Raspberry Pi teaches programming languages like Scratch and Python.  When first looking at a Raspberry Pi, one might think that it isn’t capable of doing much but in reality it can do everything your desktop computer can do from browsing the internet, playing high- definition video, creating spreadsheets, and playing games. This device also serves as an excellent hacking tool.

According to the Raspberry Pi website, “The idea behind a tiny and affordable computer for kids came in 206, when Eben Upton, Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft, based at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, became concerned about the year-on-year decline in the numbers and skill levels of the A Level students applying to read Computer Science.” (About us)  From the time of the invention of computers to present, people have been interacting with computers.  Instead of programming, students learn more how to interact with Microsoft software like Excel and Word and not many progress to learn the fundamentals of programming.  The first Raspberry Pi has sold over three million Raspberry Pi’s since their first release in February 2012.    

The newest models available are the Raspberry Pi Model A+ and the Raspberry Model B+.  The Raspberry Pi A+ model is significantly smaller (55mm by 65mm) than the lesser models.  It also inherits the many improvements that were made to the Model B+. The A+ model consumes significantly less power than model B which is a good choice for battery powered ventures, like robots.  Both the A+ and B+ models contain 512MB of RAM memory and use a Linux based operating system.   The A+ and B+ model also share another useful feature:  they both have 4USB ports compared to only 2 on the A model.  Raspbian is the recommended operating system which is similar to Risc OS, Android and Pidora.

You don’t have to be an expert programmer to use the Raspberry Pi.  There are several instructional videos online on how to use the credit card size computer.  The Raspberry Pi website also hosts Raspberry Jams to help share and expand knowledge.  The website also contains a help tab with helpful links to starting using your Raspberry Pi.  So if you or someone you know is looking to learn more about programming then this is an inexpensive way to learn.

Signing out,

Sydney

Sources:

"About Us." Raspberry Pi N.p., n.d. Web. 16, Nov, 2014

Images taken from Google Images