Connexion
The mission of the Raspberry Pi Foundation is to enable young people to realise their full potential through the power of computing and digital technologies. That’s what we say in our 2025 strategy. But how can we be sure we’re succeeding?
In our strategy we also identify one of our values as being ‘focussed on impact’. This means that we are committed to learning from the best available evidence, and to being rigorous and transparent about the difference we’re making.
Like all our values, our focus on impact infuses all of our work, and it is led by a dedicated impact team. This blog outlines four ways in which we put this value into practice in pursuit of our mission.
It doesn’t matter how fast you run, if you’re heading in the wrong direction, you’ll never get to your destination. We use data to prioritise our resources where we can make the biggest difference for young people.
For example, we use national statistics from the UK to assess how many of the Code Clubs and CoderDojos we support in the UK run in places where they can reach young people facing educational disadvantage, so that we can adopt an evidence-based approach to better serving these young people.
And we know many of the young people who face the greatest barriers to accessing computing education and developing new skills and confidence live in countries with low- and middle-income economies. That’s why we are building new partnerships in India, Kenya, and South Africa and adapting our resources and programmes for the contexts of educators and learners living there.
We’re really excited that we’ll soon be publishing an updated Theory of Change, which captures how we make an impact. This will be the foundation for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) plans for all of our initiatives, where we specify their goals and set down what kinds of data we will collect to make sure we have the measure of whether the initiatives are succeeding.
Strong M&E is equally important for our established programmes and our new pilot initiatives. Code Club, the worldwide network of free, after-school coding clubs for 9- to 13-year-olds we support, has been growing for more than 10 years. Durham University’s Evidence Centre for Education is currently conducting an independent evaluation of UK-based Code Clubs to help us understand how to better support Code Club volunteers and learners around the world. We ourselves recently evaluated the pilot of a new programme we designed in partnership with Amala Education to deliver a vocational skills course for displaced learners aged 16 to 25 in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.
Data is only useful if it’s translated into insights that are acted upon. We use the findings from evaluations to inform the design and continual improvement of all our initiatives.
For example, the evaluation of our pilot vocational skills training in Kakuma refugee camp provided insights that have helped us adapt the programme for a second cohort of young people. The same was true of the M&E insights we gained from our partnership with Mo Schools in Odisha, India, where we have provided training and support to 1075 teachers to establish Code Clubs. Informed by survey data and informal feedback each step of the way, we are now gradually scaling up our support towards launching a more intensive computing and coding programme in 2000 schools in Odisha this year.
Side by side with our M&E results, we also rely on the latest computing education research, conducted at the Foundation, in the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, and by academic researchers around the world. Our groundbreaking research programme on gender balance in computing, and our ongoing research on culturally relevant pedagogy, are shaping the way we work to enable all young people to achieve their full potential in computing.
We are proud of the difference we are making. We want everyone to hear about it and feel inspired to get involved in our vital mission for young people. Our annual reviews are packed full of statistics and overviews of the difference we’re making, and we’re creating a growing video series of unique stories from people in the community we support. Watch this space for news about our updated Theory of Change, our next annual review, and more blogs about our impact.
By doing these four things well, we can be confident that we are enabling young people to achieve their potential through the power of computing and digital technologies.
If you share our passion for impact and think our mission is important, why not get involved today? You can:
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Why are computing systems at the heart of our computing curriculum design? Senior Learning Manager Sway Grantham from the Foundation team explains in her article from the brand-new issue of Hello World, our free magazine for computing educators, out today.
Whether you plan lessons on a Computing topic, develop curriculum content, or even write curriculum policy, you have to make choices. What are you going to include and what is less of a priority? You have to consider time constraints and access to resources, prior learning and maybe even pupil interests. You probably also have to consider the wider curriculum context. Well, here is my first principle to help you: computing systems should be the foundation of your Computing curriculum.
As a primary teacher, when I first began writing Computing lesson plans for children aged 9 to 10, I started with programming. This was a very visual entry into Computing, and children were excited to create projects that were familiar to them, such as games and animations. However, as my understanding of Computing grew, I realised that something was missing.
My learners could explain what an algorithm is, as well as explaining that a program is ‘a set of instructions that runs on a computer to tell it what to do’. Both of these met the curriculum needs, but I wasn’t convinced that they could link these two concepts together. Could they connect what they were doing on a floor robot to the computing systems around them? Did they understand what a computer was? Well… I asked them to see what they’d say!
According to my class, a computer was:
This very simple question highlighted a wealth of alternate conceptions about programming and computing systems. The other commonality of my learners’ definitions was that they described the computer’s function, as if, in order to define what a computer is, we just need to know what it does. This view of a definition greatly limits learners’ ability to understand what potential computers have beyond personal use.
My learners had two discrete chunks of knowledge: how to program a floor robot, and that laptops were computers. However, without a bridge to connect them, this learning was disjointed. Learners needed to have a concrete, conceptual understanding of ‘what a computer is’ before they could start to comprehend the more abstract role of a program in that system.
Knowledge of computing systems empowers people to take control of technology and not just consume it.
Beyond the experiences of my young learners, we see examples of a lack of understanding about computing systems all the time in society. Many competent users of software are able to regularly complete the tasks that they need, but if one day something doesn’t work, they do not know how to find a solution. Equally, many people enjoy exploring digital making projects, yet if they want to personalise the project, they don’t know what they can or can’t change to do this. Knowledge of computing systems empowers people to take control of technology and not just consume it.
Both of these examples highlight the importance of introducing computing systems as both life skills and as support for developing other areas of computing. More recently, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has been creating 100 hours of curriculum content in partnership with non-profit organisation Amala Education. Through this content we aim to give refugee learners who may never have used technology enough understanding to build a website that encourages social change.
Whilst we know that the material needs to include some foundational knowledge of computing systems, we must first consider the core content that learners must understand to achieve the end goal, such as:
These areas of learning are a great place to start as, undeniably, learners aren’t going to be able to build a website without knowing the process of creating a website, the languages used to create web pages, or the project management skills to see a project from start to finish.
This could be the entirety of the content, but instead, I encourage you to think back to those children who could program but didn’t know on what devices programs could run. We need to connect the core content to that foundational content: how is building a website related to computing systems?
All learning is built on prior knowledge, even if that prior knowledge has been gained through life experience and not formal education. To build a website, we need to know how to type and use a mouse. We need to know what a website is, why people use websites, and what sort of media is found on them. Beyond that, we need to know how the files that we are creating are being shared with other people. We need to understand that a computer can communicate with another computer and what the process is to make that happen. None of this learning is the core content of building a website, but if you tried to build a website without understanding these things, it would be difficult to do.
All learning is built on prior knowledge, even if that prior knowledge has been gained through life experience and not formal education.
As the learners we support together with Amala Education might have no prior experience of using technology, we needed to ensure that enough foundational computing systems content was built into the learning sequence — things such as:
By incorporating this content into the learning sequence, we ensure that learners do not just learn a process for creating a website. They understand the impact of the choices they make when building a website, they have the skills to implement their ideas, and they can connect their understanding to solve any unexpected challenges they find along the way. This more holistic approach should support learners’ knowledge transfer and offer them a much broader range of opportunities.
This more holistic approach should support learners’ knowledge transfer and offer them a much broader range of opportunities.
Whatever your curriculum requires, you will have the core content you need to teach. This could be the requirements of your standardised curriculum, it could be the specific project you’re trying to build, or it could be the aspirations that you have for your students. However, rather than stopping at that part of your learning sequence, take a step back and consider the prior knowledge you’re connecting to. I expect you will find that computing systems is what you need to ensure learners’ new knowledge has a solid foundation.
Computing systems and networks is one of those computer science topics in which misconceptions abound. Hello World issue 20 focuses on how you can support your learners to grasp even the tricky ideas within this topic, giving you practical ideas, activities, and insights from practicing educators. Download your free PDF copy now, and subscribe to never miss an issue.
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Since joining the Raspberry Pi Foundation as a Code Club Community Manager for Scotland earlier this year, I have seen first-hand the passion, dedication, and commitment of the Scottish community to support the digital, personal, and social skills of young people.
Code Club launched in schools in 2012 to give opportunities to children to share and develop their love of coding through free after-school clubs. Now we have clubs across the world connecting learners in having fun with digital technologies.
One of my first visits was to St. Mark’s Primary School in East Renfrewshire, where I met an amazing Code Club leader called Ashley Guy. Ashley only got involved in Code Club this year, but has already launched three clubs at her school!
I went to visit her Primary 2 and 3’s club, where the children were working on creating animations in Scratch to celebrate Code Club’s tenth birthday. It was a real joy to see the young children so engaged with our projects. The young coders worked both independently and together to create their own animations.
One of the girls I spoke to made a small error while coding her project, but she smiled and said, “I made a mistake, but that’s okay because that’s how we learn!” She showed just the kind of positive, problem-solving mindset that Code Club helps to cultivate.
Another school doing something incredible at their Code Club, led by Primary 7 teacher Fiona Lindsay, is Hillside School in Aberdeenshire. I love seeing the fun things they get up to, including celebrating Code Club’s 10th birthday in style with an impressive Code Club cake.
Fiona and her club are using the Code Club projects and resources to create their own exciting and challenging games. They’ve taken part in several of our online codealongs, and they also held an event at the school to showcase their great work — which even got the children’s parents coding!
Some of the young people who attend Code Club at Hillside School sent us videos about their experiences, why they come to Code Club, and what it means to them. Young coder Abisola describes Code Club in one word:
Young coder Crystal said, “We can experiment with what we know and make actual projects… At Code Club we learn about new blocks in Scratch and what blocks and patterns go together to make something.” Here is Crystal sharing her favourite part of Code Club:
Obuma also attends the Code Club at Hillside School. She shared what she gains from attending the sessions and why she thinks other young people should join a Code Club too:
“At Code Club we improve our teamwork skills, because there’s a lot of people in Code Club and most of the time you work together to create different things… Join [Code Club] 100%. It is so fun. It might not be something everyone would want to try, but if you did try it, then you would enjoy it.”
Obuma, young coder at Hillside School’s Code Club
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most as part of the Code Club team has been running an UK-wide online codealong to celebrate STEM Clubs Week. The theme was outer space, so our ‘Lost in space’ project in Scratch was the ideal fit.
During this practical coding session, classes across Scotland, England, and Wales had great fun coding the project together to animate rockets that move around space. We were thrilled by the feedback from teachers.
“The children really enjoyed the session. They are very proud of their animations and some children went on to extend their programs. All [the] children said they would love to do more codealongs!”
Teacher who took part in an online Code Club codealong
Thank you to everyone who got involved in the codealong. See you again at the next one.
To help you start your Code Club year with ease and fun, we will be launching new free resources for you and your club members. There’ll be a special pack filled with step-by-step instructions and engaging activities to kickstart your first session back, and a fun sticker chart to help young coders mark their progress.
We would love to see you at our practical and interactive online workshop ‘Ten reasons why coding is fun for everyone’ on Thursday 15 September at 16:00–17:00 BST, which will get you ready for National Coding Week (19–23 September). Come along to the workshop to get useful guidance and tips on how to engage everyone with coding.
We will also be holding lots of other exciting activities and sessions throughout the upcoming school term, including for World Space Week (4–10 October), the Moonhack coding challenge in October, and World Hello Day in November. So keep an eye on our Twitter @CodeClubUK for live updates.
Whether you’re interested in learning more about Code Club in Scotland, you have a specific question, or you just want to say hi, I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me at scotland@codeclub.org, or @CodeClubSco on Twitter. I’ll also be attending the Scottish Education Expo on 21 and 22 September along with other Code Club team members, so come along and say hello.
With the new school term approaching, now is a great time to register and start a Code Club at your school. You can find out more on our website, codeclub.org, or contact us directly at support@codeclub.org
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Last summer, the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology created a new research centre focusing on computing education research for young people in both formal and non-formal education. The Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre is an exciting venture through which we aim to deliver a step-change for the field.
Computing education research that focuses specifically on young people is relatively new, particularly in contrast to established research disciplines such as those focused on mathematics or science education. However, computing is now a mandatory part of the curriculum in several countries, and being taken up in education globally, so we need to rigorously investigate the learning and teaching of this subject, and do so in conjunction with schools and teachers.
To celebrate the official launch of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, we will be holding an in-person event in Cambridge, UK on Weds 20 July from 15.00. This event is free and open to all: if you are interested in computing education research, we invite you to register for a ticket to attend. By coming together in person, we want to help strengthen a collaborative community of researchers, teachers, and other education practitioners.
The launch event is your opportunity to meet and mingle with members of the Centre’s research team and listen to a series of short talks. We are delighted that Prof. Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan), who many readers will be familiar with, will be travelling from the US to join us in cutting the ribbon. Mark has worked in computer science education for decades and won many awards for his research, so I can’t think of anybody better to be our guest speaker. Our other speakers are Prof. Alastair Beresford from the Department of Computer Science and Technology, and Carrie Anne Philbin MBE, our Director of Educator Support at the Foundation.
The event will take place at the Department of Computer Science and Technology in Cambridge. It will start at 15.00 with a reception where you’ll have the chance to talk to researchers and see the work we’ve been doing. We will then hear from our speakers, before wrapping up at 17.30. You can find more details about the event location on the ticket registration page.
The aim of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre is to increase our understanding of teaching and learning computing, computer science, and associated subjects, with a particular focus on young people who are from backgrounds that are traditionally under-represented in the field of computing or who experience educational disadvantage.
We have been establishing the Centre over the last nine months. In October, I was appointed Director, and in December, we were awarded funding by Google for a one-year research project on culturally relevant computing teaching, following on from a project at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Centre’s research team is uniquely positioned, straddling both the University and the Foundation. Our two organisations complement each other very well: the University is one of the highest-ranking universities in the world and renowned for its leading-edge academic research, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation works with schools, educators, and learners globally to pursue its mission to put the power of computing into the hands of young people.
In our research at the Centre, we will make sure that:
We are excited to work with a large community of teachers and researchers, and we look forward to meeting you at the launch event.
At the end of June, we’ll be launching a new website for the Centre at computingeducationresearch.org. This will be the place for you to find out more about our projects and events, and to sign up to our newsletter. For announcements on social media, follow the Raspberry Pi Foundation on Twitter or Linkedin.
The post Join us at the launch event of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
This month, the team behind our Code Club programme supported nearly 6000 children across Scotland to “code against climate change” during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.
“The scale of what we have achieved is outstanding. We have supported over 5750 young learners to code projects that are both engaging and meaningful to their conversations on climate.”
Louise Foreman, Education Scotland (Digital Skills team)
Working with teams from Education Scotland, and with e-Sgoil, our Code Club team hosted two live online code-along events that saw learners from 235 schools across Scotland come together to code and learn about protecting the environment.
“This type of event at this scale would not have been possible before the pandemic. Now joining and learning through live online events is quite normal, thanks to platforms like e-Sgoil’s DYW Live. That said, the success of these code-alongs has been above even our wildest imaginations.”
Peter Murray, Education Scotland (Developing the Young Workforce team)
Classes of young people aged 8 to 14 across Scotland joined the live online code-along through the national GLOW platform and followed Lorna from our Code Club team through a step-by-step project guide to code creative projects with an environmental theme.
At our first session, for beginners, the coding newcomers explored the importance of pollinating insects for the environment. They first learned that a third of the food we eat depends on pollinators such as bees and butterflies, and that these insects are endangered by environmental crises.
Then the young coders celebrated pollinating insects by coding a garden scene filled with butterflies, based on our popular Butterfly garden project guide. This Scratch project introduces beginner coders to loops while they code their animations, and it allows them to get creative and customise the look of their projects. Above are still images of two example animations coded by the young learners.
The second Code Club code-along event was designed for more confident coders. First, learners were asked to consider the impact of plastic in our oceans and reflect on the recent news that around 26,000 tonnes of coronavirus-related plastic waste (such as masks and gloves) has already entered our oceans. To share this message, they then coded a game based on our Save the shark Scratch project guide. In this game, players help a shark swim through the ocean trying to avoid plastic waste, which is dangerous to its health.
Following on from last weeks’ coding session P4 were able to work collaboratively to code a game. The aim is for the shark to eat the fish and not the plastic. We have been learning about protecting our planet in class. Thank you @CodeClubScot for the detailed instructions! JP pic.twitter.com/3kmsmLFUzA
— St John's RC Academy (@st_johnsacademy) November 10, 2021
These two Scotland-wide code-along events for schools were made possible by the long-standing collaboration between Education Scotland and our Code Club team. Over the last five years, our shared mission to grow interest for coding and computer science among children across Scotland has helped Scottish teachers start hundreds of Code Clubs.
“The code-alongs were the perfect celebration of all the brilliant work we have done together over the years. What better way to demonstrate the importance of computing science to young people than to show them that not only can they use those skills on something important like climate change, but they are also in great company with thousands of other children across Scotland. I am excited about the future.”
Kirsty McFaul, Education Scotland (Technologies team)
We also want to give kudos to the teachers of the 235 schools who helped their learners participate in this Code Club code-along. Thanks to your skills in supporting your learners to participate in online sessions — skills hard-won during school closures — over 5000 young people have been inspired about coding and protecting the planet we all share.
Teachers around the world run Code Clubs for their learners, with the help of our free Code Club resources and support. Find out more about starting a Code Club at your school at www.codeclub.org.
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So far in our series of community stories, we’ve collaborated with young people from the UK, India, and Romania who are getting creative with technology to change the world around them.
Our next community story comes from a highly regarded community member who has been connecting young people with opportunities to learn and create with technology throughout her career. A US-based educator with over twenty years of experience, Yolanda Payne shares our mission to put computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world.
“The biggest reason I’m so invested in technology is because people invested in me.”
Yolanda Payne
Yolanda Payne is an educator you might recognise from our online courses. Based in Atlanta, Georgia in the USA, she’s passionate about making technology accessible to all and helping young people become technology creators.
Yolanda says, “The biggest reason I’m so invested in technology is because people invested in me. They saw something that I was good at, showed me opportunities, and so in turn, that was my philosophy in teaching.”
Yolanda got her first computer at a young age and was hooked instantly: it opened up many new opportunities and led her to choosing a career in education. She says, “The computer gives me the tools to be an artist, it gives me the tools to create things, and if it does that for me, then just imagine what it will do for kids!”
“If you give a teacher a Raspberry Pi and show them these resources, they’re going to be hooked.”
Yolanda Payne
Yolanda has spent her entire professional life dedicated to education. She gained a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Mississippi University for Women; a master’s degree in Instructional Technology from Mississippi State University; and Educational Specialist degrees from the University of Florida and the University of Georgia in Curriculum and Instruction, and in Language and Literacy.
Throughout her twenty-one years as a classroom teacher and her time running Code Clubs, Yolanda found joy in supporting students who have multiple challenges or complex needs, and in seeing them thrive in the subject of computer science. Yolanda points out, “I worked with both students that were considered to be in special education and students that were gifted. And one of the biggest things that I saw that I don’t think people realise, especially about students in special education: they are used to solving problems. […] You’d be very surprised at how real-life problem-solving skills flow very easily into computer science.”
Yolanda now works as a Research Associate at the Georgia Institute of Technology. We are tremendously thankful for her contributions as an educator and an advocate for technology and young people.
Please join us in celebrating her story by sharing it on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook!
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Shoot for the moon in our Python version of the Atari hit, Lunar Lander. Mark Vanstone has the code.
Atari’s cabinet featured a thrust control, two buttons for rotating, and an abort button in case it all went horribly wrong.
First released in 1979 by Atari, Lunar Lander was based on a concept created a decade earlier. The original 1969 game (actually called Lunar) was a text-based affair that involved controlling a landing module’s thrust to guide it safely down to the lunar surface; a later iteration, Moonlander, created a more visual iteration of the same idea on the DEC VT50 graphics terminal.
Given that it appeared at the height of the late-seventies arcade boom, though, it was Atari’s coin-op that became the most recognisable version of Lunar Lander, arriving just after the tenth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Again, the aim of the game was to use rotation and thrust controls to guide your craft, and gently set it down on a suitably flat platform. The game required efficient control of the lander, and extra points were awarded for parking successfully on more challenging areas of the landscape.
The arcade cabinet was originally going to feature a normal joystick, but this was changed to a double stalked up-down lever providing variable levels of thrust. The player had to land the craft against the clock with a finite amount of fuel with the Altitude, Horizontal Speed, and Vertical Speed readouts at the top of the screen as a guide. Four levels of difficulty were built into the game, with adjustments to landing controls and landing areas.
Our homage to the classic Lunar Lander. Can you land without causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage?
To write a game like Lunar Lander with Pygame Zero, we can replace the vector graphics with a nice pre-drawn static background and use that as a collision detection mechanism and altitude meter. If our background is just black where the Lander can fly and a different colour anywhere the landscape is, then we can test pixels using the Pygame function image.get_at() to see if the lander has landed. We can also test a line of pixels from the Lander down the Y-axis until we hit the landscape, which will give us the lander’s altitude.
The rotation controls of the lander are quite simple, as we can capture the left and right arrow keys and increase or decrease the rotation of the lander; however, when thrust is applied (by pressing the up arrow) things get a little more complicated. We need to remember which direction the thrust came from so that the craft will continue to move in that direction even if it is rotated, so we have a direction property attached to our lander object. A little gravity is applied to the position of the lander, and then we just need a little bit of trigonometry to work out the movement of the lander based on its speed and direction of travel.
To judge if the lander has been landed safely or rammed into the lunar surface, we look at the downward speed and angle of the craft as it reaches an altitude of 1. If the speed is sufficiently slow and the angle is near vertical, then we trigger the landed message, and the game ends. If the lander reaches zero altitude without these conditions met, then we register a crash. Other elements that can be added to this sample are things like a limited fuel gauge and variable difficulty levels. You might even try adding the sounds of the rocket booster noise featured on the original arcade game.
The direction of thrust could be done in several ways. In this case, we’ve kept it simple, with one directional value which gradually moves in a new direction when an alternative thrust is applied. You may want to try making an X- and Y-axis direction calculation for thrust so that values are a combination of the two dimensions. You could also add joystick control to provide variable thrust input.
Here’s Mark’s code snippet, which creates a simple shooting game in Python. To get it working on your system, you’ll need to install Pygame Zero. And to download the full code and assets, go here.
You can read more features like this one in Wireframe issue 37, available directly from Raspberry Pi Press — we deliver worldwide.
And if you’d like a handy digital version of the magazine, you can also download issue 37 for free in PDF format.
Make sure to follow Wireframe on Twitter and Facebook for updates and exclusive offers and giveaways. Subscribe on the Wireframe website to save up to 49% compared to newsstand pricing!
The post Code a homage to Lunar Lander | Wireframe #37 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
In issue 88 of The MagPi, we discovered that Raspberry Pi 4 can be kept cooler than usual if placed on its side. This gave us an idea, and thanks to many Top People, it resulted in the small, simple, and very practical Raspberry Pi 4 stand that you will find on the cover of all physical copies of The MagPi 90.
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To complement this gift, we also got heat tester extraordinaire Gareth Halfacree to put the stand and several cooling cases through their paces to see just how well they can keep Raspberry Pi 4 nice and cool.
The stand also has an extra benefit: you can place three Raspberry Pis in it at once! A good idea if you plan to do a little cluster computing with a few Raspberry Pi 4s.
While the Raspberry Pi 4 stand is a pretty big deal all by itself, issue 90 of The MagPi also includes a guide to building the ultimate smart mirror — including a bit of voice control!
While a magic mirror may not show you who the fairest of them all is (I can answer that question for you: it’s me), our guide will definitely show you the easiest way to set up your own magic mirror. It’ll be straightforward, thanks to the complete step-by-step tutorial we’ve put together for you.
Feeling the urge to make something new with Raspberry Pi? Then take a look at our amazing selection of project showcases, and at a feature of some easy starter projects to help you get inspired. All this, along with our usual selection of reviews, tutorials, and community news, in The MagPi 90!
You can get The MagPi issue 90 online in our store with international delivery available, or from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge and all good newsagents and supermarkets. You can also access The MagPi magazine via our Android and iOS apps.
The stand is available with print copies of the magazine
Don’t forget our amazing subscription offers either, which include a gift of a Raspberry Pi Zero W when you subscribe for twelve months.
And, as with all our Raspberry Pi publications, you can download this issue as a free PDF from our website.
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Rob made an interactive Dungeons and Dragons table using a Raspberry Pi and an old TV. He thought it best to remind me, just in case I had forgotten. I hadn’t forgotten. Honest. Here’s a photo of it.
The table connects to Roll20 via Chromium, displaying the quest maps while the GM edits and reveals the layout using their laptop. Yes, they could just plug their laptop directly into the monitor, but using the Raspberry Pi as a bridge means there aren’t any awkward wires in the way, and the GM can sit anywhere they want around the table.
Rob wrote up an entire project how-to for The MagPi magazine. Go forth and read it!
The post Rob’s Raspberry Pi Dungeons and Dragons table appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
We collected some of the most common Raspberry Pi 4 questions asked by you, our community, and sat down with Eben Upton, James Adams, and Gordon Hollingworth to get some answers.
Raspberry Pi 4 Q&A
We grilled our engineers with your Raspberry Pi 4 questions Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://rpf.io/ytsub Help us reach a wider audience by translating our video content: http://rpf.io/yttranslate Buy a Raspberry Pi from one of our Approved Resellers: http://rpf.io/ytproducts Find out more about the #RaspberryPi Foundation: Raspberry Pi http://rpf.io/ytrpi Code Club UK http://rpf.io/ytccuk Code Club International http://rpf.io/ytcci CoderDojo http://rpf.io/ytcd Check out our free online training courses: http://rpf.io/ytfl Find your local Raspberry Jam event: http://rpf.io/ytjam Work through our free online projects: http://rpf.io/ytprojects Do you have a question about your Raspberry Pi?
Do you have more questions about our new board or accessories? Leave them in the comments of our YouTube video, or in the comments below, and we’ll collect some of the most commonly asked questions together for another Q&A session further down the line.
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Hack your existing Raspberry Pi case to fit the layout of your new Raspberry Pi 4, with this handy “How to hack your existing Raspberry Pi case to fit the layout of your new Raspberry Pi 4” video!
Hack your old Raspberry Pi case to fit your Raspberry Pi 4
Hack your existing official Raspberry Pi case to fit the new Raspberry Pi 4, or treat yourself to the new official Raspberry Pi 4 case. The decision is yours!
The post Hack your old Raspberry Pi case for the Raspberry Pi 4 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
We are immensely sad to learn of the death, on 1 June, of Andy Baker, joint founder and organiser of the brilliant Cotswold Raspberry Jam. Andy had been suffering from brain cancer.
Together with co-founder Andrew Oakley, Andy worked incredibly hard to make the Cotswold Jam one of the most exciting Jams of all, with over 150 people of all ages attending its most popular events. He started working with Raspberry Pis back in 2012, and developed a seriously impressive degree of technical expertise: among his projects were a series of Pi-powered quadcopters, no less, including an autonomous drone. Many of us will forever associate Andy with a memorably fiery incident at the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend in 2016, which he handled with grace and good humour that eludes most of us:
Raspberry Pi Party Autonomous drone demo + fire
At the Raspberry Pi IV party and there is a great demo of an Autonomous drone which is very impressive with only using a Pi. However it caught on fire. But i believe it does actually work.
Andy maintained his involvement with the Raspberry Pi community, and especially the Cotswold Jam, for several years while living with a brain tumour, and shared his skills and enthusiasm with hundreds of others. He was at the heart of the Raspberry Pi community. When our patron, His Royal Highness the Duke of York, kindly hosted a reception at St. James’s Palace in October 2016 to recognise the Raspberry Pi community, Andy joined us to celebrate in style:
Cotswold Jam on Twitter
@ben_nuttall @DougGore @PiStuffing @rjam_chat Cheers, Ben! Fab photo of Prince Andrew being ignored by @davejavupride & Andy Baker @PiStuffing who are too busy drinking… “It’s what he would have wanted…” :-) https://t.co/FK7sk1CoDs
Andy suggested that, if people would like to make a donation in his name, they support his local school’s IT department, somewhere else he used to volunteer. The department isn’t able to accept online donations, but cheques in pounds sterling can be made out to “Gloucestershire County Council” and posted to a local funeral director who will collect and forward them:
Andy Baker memorial fund
c/o Blackwells of Cricklade
Thames House
Thames Lane
Cricklade
SN6 6BH
We owe Andy immense gratitude for all his work to help people learn and have a great time with Raspberry Pi. We were very lucky indeed to have him as part of our community. We will miss him.
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We welcomed a very special guest to Raspberry Pi HQ today.
Our Patron, His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, visited our central Cambridge HQ to meet our team, learn more about our work, and give his support for our mission to help more young people learn how to create with computers.
Avid readers of this blog will know that this isn’t Raspberry Pi’s first royal encounter. Back in 2014, Raspberry Pi was one of the UK tech startups invited to showcase our product at a reception at Buckingham Palace. At that stage, we had just celebrated the sale of our two millionth credit card–sized computer.
Fast forward to October 2016, when were celebrating the sale of our ten millionth Raspberry Pi computer with a reception at St James Palace and 150 members of our community. By this time, not only was our product flying off the shelves, but the Foundation had merged with Code Club, had expanded its teacher training programmes, and was working with thousands of volunteers to bring computing and digital making to tens of thousands of young people all over the world.
Both of our trips to the royal palaces were hosted by Prince Andrew, who has long been a passionate advocate for technology businesses and digital skills. On top of his incredible advocacy work, he’s also an entrepreneur and innovator in his own right, founding and funding initiatives such as iDEA and Pitch at the Palace, which make a huge impact on digital skills and technology startups.
We are really very fortunate to have him as our Patron.
Today’s visit was an opportunity to update Prince Andrew on the incredible progress we’ve made towards our mission since that first trip to Buckingham Palace.
We now have over 25 million Raspberry Pi computers in the wild, and people use them in education, in industry, and for their hobbies in an astonishing number of ways. Through our networks of Code Clubs and CoderDojos, we have supported more than a million young people to learn how to create with technology while also developing essential life skills such as teamwork, resilience, and creativity. You can read more about what we’ve achieved in our latest Annual Review.
We talked with Prince Andrew about our work to support computing in the classroom, including the National Centre for Computing Education in England, and our free online teacher training that is being used by tens of thousands of educators all over the world to develop their skills and confidence.
Prince Andrew shares our determination to encourage more girls to learn about computing and digital making, and we discussed our #realrolemodels campaign to get even more girls involved in Code Clubs and CoderDojos, as well as the groundbreaking gender research project that we’ve launched with support from the UK government.
One of our rituals at the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the monthly all-staff meetup. On the third Wednesday of every month, colleagues from all over the world congregate in Cambridge to share news and updates, learn from each other, and plan together (and yes, we have a bit of fun too).
My favourite part of Prince Andrew’s visit is that he organised it to coincide with the all-staff meetup. He spent most of his time speaking to team members and hearing about the work they do every day to bring our mission to life through creating educational resources, supporting our massive community of volunteers, training teachers, building partnerships, and much more.
In his address to the team, he said:
Raspberry Pi is one of those organisations that I have been absolutely enthralled by because of what you have enabled. The fact that there is this piece of hardware that started this, and that has led to educational work that reaches young people everywhere, is just wonderful.
In the 21st century, every single person in the workplace is going to have to use and interact with some form of digital technology. The fact that you are giving the next generation the opportunity to get hands-on is fantastic.
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Use Google Duo and a Raspberry Pi to build a video doorbell for your home so you can always be there to answer your door, even when you’re not actually there to answer your door.
“Martin Mander builds a good build,” I reply to Liz Upton as she shares this project, Martin’s latest one, with me on Slack. We’re pretty familiar with his work here at Raspberry Pi! Previously, we’ve shared his Google AIY retrofit intercom, upcycled 1970s TV with built-in Raspberry Pi TV HAT, and Batinator. We love the extra step that Martin always takes to ensure the final result of each project is clean-cut and gorgeous-looking, with not even a hint of hot glue in sight.
“I’ve always fancied making a video doorbell using a Raspberry Pi,” explains Martin in the introduction to his project on Hackster.io. “[B]ut until recently I couldn’t find an easy way to make video calls that would both work in a project and be straightforward for others to recreate.”
By ‘recently’, he means February of this year, when Google released their Duo video chat application for web browsers.
With a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and a webcam in hand, Martin tested the new release, and lo and behold, he was able to video-call his wife with relative ease via Chromium, Raspbian‘s default browser.
“The webcam I tested had a built-in microphone, and even on the first thrown-together test call, the quality was great. This was a very exciting moment, unlocking the potential of the video doorbell project as well as many other possibilities.”
By accident, Martin also discovered that you can run Google Duo out of the browser, even on the Raspberry Pi. This allowed him to strip away all the unnecessary “Chromium furniture”.
But, if this was to be a video doorbell, how was he to tell the Raspberry Pi to call his mobile phone when the doorbell was activated?
“If Duo were a full app, then command line options might be available, for example to launch the app and immediately call a specific contact. In the absence of this (for now?) I needed to find a way to automatically start a call with a GPIO button press.”
To accomplish this, Martin decided to use PyUserInput, a community-built cross-platform module for Python. “The idea was to set up a script to wait for a button press, then move the mouse to the Contacts textbox, type the name of the contact, press Enter and click Video Call“, Martin explains. And after some trial and error — and calls to the wrong person — his project was a working success.
To complete the build, Martin fitted the doorbell components into a 1980s intercom (see his previous intercom build), wired them through to a base unit inside the home, and then housed it all within an old Sony cassette player.
The final result? A functional video doorbell that is both gorgeous and practical. You can find out more about the project on the Hackster.io project page.
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Five years ago, I spent my first day working at the original Pi Towers (Starbucks in Cambridge). Since then, we’ve developed a whole host of different products and services which our customers love, but there was always one that we never got around to until now: a physical shop. (Here are opening times, directions and all that good stuff.)
Years ago, my first idea was rather simple: rent a small space for the Christmas month and then open a pop-up shop just selling Raspberry Pis. We didn’t really know why we wanted to do it, but suspected it would be fun! We didn’t expect it to take five years to organise, but last month we opened the first Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge’s Grand Arcade – and it’s a much more complete and complicated affair than that original pop-up idea.
Given that we had access to a bunch of Raspberry Pis, we thought that we should use some of them to get some timelapse footage of the shop being set up.
Raspberry Pi Shop Timelapse
Uploaded by Raspberry Pi on 2019-03-22.
The idea behind the shop is to reach an audience that wouldn’t necessarily know about Raspberry Pi, so its job is to promote and display the capabilities of the Raspberry Pi computer and ecosystem. But there’s also plenty in there for the seasoned Pi hacker: we aim to make sure there’s something for you whatever your level of experience with computing is.
Inside the shop you’ll find a set of project centres. Each one contains a Raspberry Pi project tutorial or example that will help you understand one advantage of the Raspberry Pi computer, and walk you through getting started with the device. We start with a Pi running Scratch to control a GPIO, turning on and off an LED. Another demos a similar project in Python, reading a push button and lighting three LEDs (can you guess what colour the three LEDs are?) – you can also see project centres based around Kodi and RetroPi demonstrating our hardware (the TV-HAT and the Pimoroni Picade console), and an area demonstrating the various Raspberry Pi computer options.
There is a soft seating area, where you can come along, sit and read through the Raspberry Pi books and magazines, and have a chat with the shop staff. Finally we’ve got shelves of stock with which you can fill yer boots. This is not just Raspberry Pi official products, but merchandise from all of the ecosystem, totalling nearly 300 different lines (with more to come). Finally, we’ve got the Raspberry Pi engineering desk, where we’ll try to answer even the most complex of your questions.
Come along, check out the shop, and give us your feedback. Who knows – maybe you’ll find some official merchandise you can’t buy anywhere else!
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ChordAssist aims to bring the joy of learning the guitar to those who otherwise may have problems with accessing guitar tutorials. Offering advice in Braille, in speech, and on-screen, ChordAssist has been built specifically for deaf, blind, and mute people. Creator Joe Birch, who also built the BrailleBox device, used Raspberry Pi, Google Assistant, and a variety of accessibility tools and technology for this accessible instrument.
Chord Assist: An accessible smart guitar for the blind, deaf and mute
Powered by the Google Assistant, read more at chordassist.com
Inspired by a hereditary visual impairment in his family, Buffer’s Android Lead Joe Birch spent six months working on ChordAssist, an accessible smart guitar.
“This is a project that I used to bring my love of music and accessibility (inspired by my family condition of retinitis pigmentosa) together to create something that could allow everyone to enjoy learning and playing music — currently an area which might not be accessible to all,” explained Joe when he shared his project on Twitter earlier this month.
This isn’t Joe’s first step into the world of smart accessibility devices. In 2017, he created BrailleBox, an Android Things news delivery device that converts daily news stories into Braille, using wooden balls atop solenoids that move up and down to form Braille symbols.
This same technology exists within ChordAssist, along with an LCD screen for visual learning, and a speaker system for text-to-speech conversion.
Chord Assist was already an Action on the Google Project that I built for the Google Home, now I wanted to take that and stick it in a guitar powered by voice, visuals, and Braille. All three of these together will hopefully help to reduce the friction that may be experienced throughout the process of learning an instrument.
ChordAssist is currently still at the prototype stage, and Joe invites everyone to offer feedback so he can make improvements.
To learn more about ChordAssist, visit the ChordAssist website and check out Joe’s write-up on Medium.
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Today, ESA Education and the Raspberry Pi Foundation are proud to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science! In support of this occasion and to encourage young women to enter a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), CSA astronaut Jenni Sidey discusses why she believes computing and digital making skills are so important, and tells us about the role models that inspired her.
Jenni Sidey inspires young women in science with Astro Pi
Today, ESA Education and the Raspberry Pi Foundation are proud to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science! In support of this occasion and to encourage young women to enter a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), CSA astronaut Jenni Sidey discusses why she believes computing and digital making skills are so important, and tells us about the role models that inspired her.
The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is part of the United Nations’ plan to achieve their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. According to current UNESCO data, less than 30% of researchers in STEM are female and only 30% of young women are selecting STEM-related subjects in higher education
That’s why part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda is to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls. And to help young women and girls develop their computing and digital making skills, we want to encourage their participation in the European Astro Pi Challenge!
The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education programme run in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation that offers students and young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific investigations in space! The challenge is to write computer programs for one of two Astro Pi units — Raspberry Pi computers on board the International Space Station.
Astro Pi’s Mission Zero is open until 20 March 2019, and this mission gives young people up to 14 years of age the chance to write a simple program to display a message to the astronauts on the ISS. No special equipment or prior coding skills are needed, and all participants that follow the mission rules are guaranteed to have their program run in space!
To help many more people take part in their native language, we’ve translated the Mission Zero resource, guidelines, and web page into 19 different languages! Head to our languages section to find your version of Mission Zero and take part.
If you have any questions regarding the European Astro Pi Challenge, email us at astropi@esa.int.
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Escape the distractions of the world around you and focus your attention on the thing you love the most in life: your smartphone! It’s easy with the all-new Buddha Box, brought to you by South Park and the 8 Bits and a Byte team!
Introducing The All New Buddha Box | South Park
A brand new invention is sweeping South Park. The Buddha Box will let you escape from anything in the world so that you can focus on the thing you love the most… your phone.
Introduced in a recent episode of the cult show South Park, the Buddha Box is an ingenious invention that allows its user to ignore the outside world and fully immerse themselves in their smartphone. With noise-cancelling headphones and a screen so close to your eyes you’ll be seeing light spots for weeks to come, the Buddha Box is the must-have accessory for 2019.
We jest, obviously. It’s a horrible idea. And here’s how to make your own!
Using a Raspberry Pi, noise-cancelling headphones, a screen, and a cardboard box, the wonderful 8 Bits and a Byte team has created a real-life Buddha Box that you definitely shouldn’t make yourself. As we said — horrible idea.
But it would be a great way to try out screensharing software on your Pi!
To make it, you’ll need to secure the headphones and a screen inside a suitably sized cardboard box, and then set up your Raspberry Pi to run Screencast.
The Screencast software allows you to cast the screen of your smartphone to the screen within the box — hence its name.
Here’s the tutorial from 8 Bits and a Byte, and a working demonstration:
South Park’s Buddha Box
A real, working version of South Parks Buddha Box, made using a pair of headphones, an LCD screen, a powerbank and a Raspberry Pi.
If you have an Android phone that you want to use with your Raspberry Pi, check out this guide for enabling Screencast, written by Make Tech Easier. And if you want to share the screen of an iPhone with your Pi, this Instructables guide will walk you through setting up the RPlay software.
We love prop builds using Raspberry Pi — if you do too, check out the posts in our ‘props’ blog category. And if you’ve made a prop from TV or film using a Pi, be sure to share it with us!
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Marcos Navas is a Union City Technology Facilitator with Union City school district in New Jersey and an active member of the maker, STEM, and coding communities. He was part of the first cohort of Raspberry Pi Certified Educators in the United States. Recently, he completed a fellowship with IDEO’s Teachers Guild and launched Hands-on Coding, a company that makes physical coding blocks for learners. Hands-On Coding blocks allow students to physically build computer programs and act out their code in the real world. They turn the human into a computer and teach children not only how to solve problems, but also how to express themselves.
In this blog post, Marcos shares how his experience at Picademy helped him successfully combine his skills as a teacher with an entrepreneurial drive.
The day before my flight to San Jose Airport to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, I was busy in my garage makerspace. It’s strange when and how inspiration strikes, but it did — at 1am while I was preparing for Picademy. While looking at the Raspberry Pi and all the coding languages, I began thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could hold the code in my hands and manipulate it?” So I began tinkering with the 3D printer and created a repeat block — and that’s how the story of Hands-On Coding begins.
The following day, I was part of the first cohort of Raspberry Pi Certified Educators (RCEs) in America. I walked into a room full of innovative and creative teachers from all over the country. Over the next two days, we were introduced to the world of Raspberry Pi and the coding basics we needed to create our first project. It was here that I understood the power of coding and how it is the language of the future. I truly believed then — and now! — how impactful coding could be if integrated into schools.
With so many talented people in attendance, I decided to share my 3D-printed coding blocks. After receiving many “oohs” and “aahs” from my peers along with several order requests, I realized that my idea could turn into something much bigger!
One of the major takeaways from Picademy was Carrie Anne Philbin’s intro slide titled “FAIL: First Attempt In Learning.” But, for me, the word ‘fail’ turned into ‘fear’: being new to coding and the Raspberry Pi was daunting. Through persistence, though, I embraced growth, and worked my way out of those fears; I began to gain more confidence, which led to new ideas and experiences. And I learned that changing my perspective on failure was the key to embracing it. Some time after Picademy, this same message was repeated to me by Reshma Suajani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, who saw my coding blocks and said: “Don’t let the fear of failure get in your way.” So I let failure drive me instead.
After Picademy, I met with Sam Patterson, another amazing RCE, at his local makerspace. During our conversation, I handed him one of my first coding block prototypes and asked for his thoughts. His words got me thinking about kinesthetic coding and the physical movements of acting out code to build understanding.
Two years later, in July 2018, after developing partnerships, distribution channels, and a fantastic shipping department (me), we delivered our first Hands-On Coding blocks! Hands-On Coding now consists of me and my partners Laura Fleming and Joann Presby, and our goal is to revolutionize coding by making it a more physical and tangible educational idea open to various types of learners. We hope to teach the fundamentals of computational thinking and computer science through the use of blocks and the absence of any technological device; you don’t need to learn coding in front of a screen. Our endgame is to help humanity learn to design solutions to problems in our world.
My experience at Picademy was just the start of my journey. I not only gained an understanding of the importance of coding in education and the versatility of the Raspberry Pi computer, but also grew out my shell and gained the confidence I needed to put ideas into actions. I became a TED Innovative Educator and an IDEO Teachers Guild Fellow, I launched Hands-on Coding, and I created numerous relationships and ambassadorships with an array of edtech companies. I understood that just because I am an educator or teacher that doesn’t mean I can’t follow my own dreams and aspirations and be a teacherpreneur! I do not have any secrets or magic to this process. Rather, a dream, action, and hard work can lead you to many worlds of possibilities.
Keep up to date with Picademy, including the release of 2019 dates, by following the #Picademy hashtag on Twitter. You’ll also find more information on our Picademy page.
Our free online training courses offer another way to learn about introducing coding into the classroom, and much more. And you can discover more stories and support from educators like Marcos in Hello World, the computing and digital making magazine for educators, which is available for free.
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There are many things I do not know about Argentina. Until today, one of them was this: if you’re in an Argentinian bank, you may not use electronic devices. That includes phones and e-readers like the Kindle (and I can’t be the only person here who is pretty much surgically attached to their Kindle).
Enter the literature dispenser.
Roni Bandini, an Argentinian author, found himself twiddling his thumbs in a Buenos Aires bank queue, and thought that perhaps the 50 other people he could see in the same situation might benefit from a little distraction. How about a machine, owned by the bank, that could furnish you with one of a curated selection of short stories at the touch of a button? The short stories bit was easy: he writes them for a living.
Expendedor de literatura en tickets (invento argentino)
Expendedor de literatura en tickets desarrollado por @ronibandini Versión 2 Elementos utilizados para su fabricación: Raspberry Pi Thermal Printer LCD Display 16×2 Custom 3d Printed Case Más información en https://medium.com/@Bandini
He chose a Raspberry Pi because there are so many libraries for thermal printers and LCD displays available (and because it’s tiny, and you can fit a heck of a lot of short stories on an SD card these days).
Roni says:
This project was “trial and error” in many aspects. I had troubles with power source amperage due to thermal printer requirements, conflicts with previous software running in the Raspberry – since the same one was used for other projects – and I had to write some routines to avoid words being split due to ticket width. Since the machine could be working for 12 hours in a row, I have added a small 5v cooling fan in the back.
He built a wooden prototype, and was helped out by Z-lab, a small, local 3d print design studio, with permanent casing (which is rather lovely).
The UI’s very simple: press the green button, be rewarded with a short story, printed to order on a till strip. We’d love to see businesses use these in real life (and we’re thinking one of these would be a lovely addition to the Pi Towers lobby, to help soothe anxious interview candidates). Thanks Roni – I’m off to try to find some of your work in translation, and we’re all agreed that we’re very grateful for internet banking.
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Lateo.net - Flux RSS en pagaille (pour en ajouter : @ moi) 