You’ve probably heard of it: the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi has been on the market since 2012. But what can you do with it? Time for a mini course on this mini PC!
First let’s start with what the new Raspberry Pi 3 has in it. The Raspberry Pi is very small and often without a housing. The latest edition has Bluetooth 4.1, a Wireless LAN and – like the Pi 2 – 1GB RAM, 4 USB ports, a full HDMI port, Ethernet Port, 3.5mm audio jack, a Micro SD card slot and a number of useful functions.
It is very clever that all this can be built in such a small size! The mini PC is especially recommended for use in schools and home use. If you have more specific projects, you also have the Pi Zero or the Model A +.
As you may have already seen, there is no memory built in (except for the 1GB RAM).
You add this by inserting an SD card into the Raspberry Pi. Once you have done this, there are some nice programs you can install. First you have to install Raspbian on the SD card. This is the driver of the Raspberry Pi.
What I really like about Raspberry now is that you can easily follow various tutorials about the Raspberry Pi on the website. Such as “Installing Raspbian with noobs”. Most of the tutorials are explained in a clear way.
Wide range
For children (and secretly for yourself too) there is Minecraft Pi: a special version of Minecraft. You can also follow a tutorial for this and then you can start creating a new world. You will learn how to build and how to manipulate the world around you through a Python programming interface. Yes, with this program your children and you will soon feel like a coding master.
The Raspberry Pi can therefore be used very well to learn various programming elements. But you can also learn to animate and make games with easy cut and paste programs. Learn to encode music, take photos and record videos or connect LEDs to your Raspberry Pi.
Now it almost seems that a lot is about coding and that it is too boring or difficult. But no, this is really not so bad. And there are even more programs you can use.
My favorite on the Raspberry Pi 3 is the RetroPi (as a gamer). With this program you can turn your Raspberry Pi 3 into any old game console.