Pi and Scouts

Yesterday, I managed to place my order for a Raspberry Pi. For those of you who don’t know what that it is, it’s –

… a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

– from their website.

They want kids to get back into using computers to make their own programmes like many of today’s software engineers did when they were kids on the Spectrum or the BBC B. In fact it can be seen as a kind of successor to the Beeb, as the company that produced them, Acorn, were responsible for the ARM architecture the chip on the Pi uses!

When I was looking on their site the other day, I came across this article about Boreatton Scouts who had managed to get hold of one early on and were using it for a robotics competition. They seem to be a very techy Troop and have had a fun time using it.

I’m very impressed with what the Troop are doing with the Pi, not to mention the more ‘normal’ Scouting activities. I think it will be worth keeping an eye on how they get on and maybe this could be something we can do as well.

I wonder if any other Troops are looking at using a Pi in their programmes?

Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation