The Raspberry Pi was developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The emphasis behind the Raspberry Pi series of low cost, high performance single board computers was to promote foundational computer science and encourage computational thinking in schools. Since the release of the original model, it found commonplace in uses such as robotics and sold well outside of it’s intended target market. The whole emphasis here is to inspire a future generation of inventors, creators and makers, and the focus on the learning is by way of practical tinkering. The whole learning process will ultimately prepare children for the ever evolving digital world of tomorrow.
With the latest incarnation of the Pi being the model 3 Model B+. A credit card sized computer with capabilities of matching any tasks that a common day desktop computer could handle such as web surfing, playing media (including blue ray streaming), spreadsheets and word processing. With a modest amount of graphics processing power then games are also possible on the device, but that in itself is merely the tip of the iceberg in regards to possibilities of this versatile device. With the digital makers revolution now in full flight, the possibilities of what is possible with the Pi are limitless from portable gaming handhelds, programmable intelligent drones and robots to name just a few.
From learning, problem solving and having fun. The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides outreach to educators working within the National Curriculum in all aspects of computing and digital making with the Pi, putting the power of digital making into the hands of the children and educators, available via high quality learning resources, to support an ever growing Pi community of educators. With a digital making curriculum structured around guidance, practice, progression and understanding in order to set the best blueprint for learning in a young child’s mind, using characters to represent varying levels of competence which start with Creator then progressing to Builder, Developer and finally a Maker.
The ultimate blueprint and philosophy of the Pi is to inspire a future generation of computer programmers, electrical and computer engineers engineers.
