anyone bought one/buying one? Thoughts? any good for 11-12 year olds?

Don’t really get it actually. Why not just take the case of an existing PC to see how its connected? All the same bits essentially and easily identifiable. Of course the risk of electrocution could be a problem…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/raspberry-pi-any-thoughts

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/raspberry-pi

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/raspberry-pi-announcement-tomorrow

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-else-trying-to-buy-a-raspberry-pi

Never heard of it, sorry.

Of course the risk of electrocution could be a problem…

Not surprised you “don’t get it”, since it’s aimed at the technically inclined (or those who wish to become so).

EDIT: the fact that both web stores selling it sold out in minutes (at 6am!) tells me that there are a lot of people out there who do “get it”.

Cruzheckler,

I have one on order (not due to be delivered until April). I am a very amatuer software geek. My 8 yr old son has shown some basic interest in programming and so I have taught him the absolute basics in Python. He is interested in the Raspberry Pi – but I expect he will bore of it as soon as it gets tricky.

When I was 12 I had the sort of programming skill necessary to do basic stuff and so a Raspberry pi would have been ideal. As yet nobody knows how steep the learning curve will be for total newbies, and if there will be any specific quirks to the Pi which make it hard to use.

Robbo’s comment is actually fair enough (although you wont get electrocuted inside a normal PC without trying very hard!). There is very little you can do with a raspberry pi that you can’t do with a standard or embedded PC solution – and although it is much lauded as the solution to teaching programming to kids, all the computers they currently have access to can run Python and they could learn on them. I suspect the issues are wider than cheap boxes to program but include, competent teaching staff; the learning curve to do anything “cool”; general interest and attitudes; and the need to approach programming with a logical/mathematical/problem solving style which from what I can see the average PC using school leaver lacks.

There will be “expansion” boards which will allow you to interface/control stuff in ways which are not economical or easy to do on a PC but I expect it will be late this year before they are widely available to give time for all the mundane stuff to be debugged a bit etc.

Its worth bearing in mind that whilst the computer is cheap (compared to any similar powered embedded pc board) it isn’t actually a complete solution. You’ll need to add a keyboard, and probably a mouse to be able to use it. Then a display of some sort (which at the very least will need a cable into your TV). An SD card for storage, a powersupply, probably a wireless adaptor and a case. But an 11yr old who has done all that and got it to work will have learnt something.

What does your 11 year old think?

@poly

were you lucky enough to get one at the 6am launch? Or through other channels?!

interface/control stuff in ways which are not economical or easy to do on a PC

It’s a real shame that parallel ports aren’t common any more – cos it’s dead easy to wire stuff up to them, and control the IO lines. E.g I built a LED VU meter type thing, few lines of code (in linux) to use it to display CPU load etc.

Interfacing with USB etc. requires a bit more hardware (a controller). BT is fairly easy, you can bang data over it like a serial port in linux, but then you still need more complex hardware on the receiving end.

I want to order one, but it’s only “express your interest” no buy it option. 🙄

It’s a real shame that parallel ports aren’t common any more – cos it’s dead easy to wire stuff up to them, and control the IO lines. E.g I built a LED VU meter type thing, few lines of code (in linux) to use it to display CPU load etc.

Interfacing with USB etc. requires a bit more hardware (a controller). BT is fairly easy, you can bang data over it like a serial port in linux, but then you still need more complex hardware on the receiving end.
I think they’ve thought of that! From the wikipedia page:

Low-level peripherals: 8 × GPIO, UART, I²C bus, SPI bus with two chip selects

I think I saw on their website that a plug in board with some I/O is on it’s way. I’ll get one for next winter, better things to do during the summer then sit on a computer.

I hope it all works; I did more programming at school 30 years then my son is doing now.

I think they’ve thought of that! From the wikipedia page:

No, my point was that someone said the Pi allows easier interfacing than a pc – I was arguing that PCs *used* to be easy to interface.

No, my point was that someone said the Pi allows easier interfacing than a pc – I was arguing that PCs *used* to be easy to interface.

Ok, fair point!

@zilog6128 – not at 6am I was still snoozing. I got an order accepted mid morning by Farnell and the order acknowledgement is forecasting delivery in April.

@zilog I’m actually an ICT teacher with 15 years in industry. I was doing a computer science degree in 1981 but wasn’t getting it until I programmed an rm380z to read temperatures from a pig barn on cassette tape and actually saw the tape machine move. Then it all clicked as I could see what was happening. I’m hope the pi let’s us do that sort of thing but why do we need something else. As poly says the machines they currently use can do all that and there are easier programming environments than python.

I’m more interested in phone apps as are the kids.

And don’t get me started on maths education!!!!!.

Course you could do most of this stuff with an Arduino board instead no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino

http://arduino.cc/

I’d quite like one as a little media centre thing with XBMC or similar. How hard would it be to build it into something like that? I know nothing of any code other than basic html.

Course you could do most of this stuff with an Arduino board instead no?

Sort of. The raspberry plugs directly into a TV (HDMI) so is more like the first home pc’s. The Arduino normally talks to a PC over USB, so you need a PC to do anything with it (you’re using the PC’s monitor and keyboard/mouse).

I’d quite like one as a little media centre thing with XBMC or similar. How hard would it be to build it into something like that? I know nothing of any code other than basic html.

Should be capable, but give it a few months for folk to get them on hand and get the software distros worked out.

The Arduino normally talks to a PC over USB, so you need a PC to do anything with it

Arduino can run independently (once programmed from a PC) so if you’re just after doing something small/embedded like the “LED VU meter type thing” that IA mentioned then it is probably a better match than the Raspberry.

That ^ ( For the that haterz 😀 )

While I wish them all the best and hope it does bring a new generation into technology, I have a fear that it will have a level of abstraction so high when targeted at non-geeks that it won’t teach anything more useful than you can currently do easier on a PC / android/iphone / fez

Arduino’s seem far better to me for learning to be ingenious.

I don’t have real experience with arduino but had a quick look for a work project once and it didn’t look really cheap, nor particularly simple for a total beginner.

Personally I think python is a great language for beginners, can’t think of another real language which would be better for beginners, of practical use, powerful and cross platform so what you learn can be used elsewhere.

An arduino can only do very primitive graphics – you can probably just about manage a 40×24 character display by doing software bit-bashing.

Raspberry pi can do 1080p OpenGL graphics.

So it means 12 year old kids can write games. And that’s what will get them interested in the first instance. At least it was for me.

I guess my point is that kids can already write games on PC’s, smart-phones, xboxes etc if they want to, and I doubt very much that the kids who get these will be bereft of these other devices.
So the limitation doesn’t appear to be lack of available hardware to learn programming
However, unless I’m missing something, the Rasberry will be at the mercy of the quality of the development environment in the same way that the other devices are. The hardware being cheap won’t bypass this.

Wow, i’m amazed (well not really) at the speed at which the “shortcomings” of this device are being identified I know a few of the guys involved with this, they will be well chuffed the respose so far….

Still not as good as an BBC Master. Or an Amstard CPC464 for that matter.

It’s easy enough to add a parrallel port to pretty much any desktop PC still…

I’m sure there’s lots of I/O stuff out there that’s pretty affordable too.

Kids should be learning automation and programming from 11, we’re way, way behind, and to be honest the HNC automations stuff only even brushes the surface – too little, too late.

Yes a Broadcom employee is developing an I/O board in his spare time called the Gertboard

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/raspberry-pis-gertboard-expansion-board-already-works-video-2012019/

Think the idea of realeasing the 10,000 barebones boards is for the resultant community to start building some critical mass regards the tools/tutorials etc..

My view is even if the pupil is presented with a CLI in which they have to type startx to get their GUI, then there will be some that will wonder what else they can type at that prompt. If they trash the filesystem so what, it’ll be easy enough to reformat the SD card and write an image file to it.

As for games they can knock something quickly together with Python, take a look at Liam Frasier’s Raspberry PI tutorials on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/RaspberryPiTutorials?ob=0&feature=results_main

Poly

If you are looking for ideas you could also take a look at NerdKits

if your son is interested in hardware and either BlueJ or Greenfoot for programming both of which use Java as a basis for learning to program.

I also like the Head First books foe beginners.

Keen to have a play with one.

I use PIC (actually PICAXE) for electronics projects with the kids at school built into project work and the newer chips are getting useful – I built myself a nice little unit for the van that has a big solar panel and using a GPS unit to work out where in Europe it is, an a little solid state flux compass drives a couple of stepper motors to point it in the optimal direction for the location and time of day. Was fun.

I keep on trying to find time to look at Ardino to replace picaxe but keep failing – maybe I’ll play with this instead.

It’s a great shame that national confusion was allowed to take place about training people to be good office monkeys (ICT) and learning computing skills.

Got one!

Will it run Eddie Kidds Jump Challenge and Way Of The Exploding Fist though?

Ooh! Have the cases started appearing yet?

Good review on Bit-Tech of one, including overclocking it. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/pcs/2012/04/16/raspberry-pi-review/1

Got one!

Congrats – when did you order? Still waiting for RS to get back to me telling me I can put my order in (though the way they’re working the queue that should then mean I get one almost immediately – I put my request in mid-morning).