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We’re happy to celebrate National Engineering Day in the UK with our friends at the Royal Academy of Engineering. Today they launch the AI-Z of Engineering, an online collection showcasing more than 100 current engineering jobs, and over 100 more engineering jobs envisaged for the future. Their aim is to inspire more young people to pursue engineering careers in areas ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to medicine, software engineering, space, and sustainability.
Engineers shape the technologies and industries that define the future — and the systems they build affect jobs and tasks in every sector. As Sir John Lazar, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and our Chair of Trustees, says about AI technology:
“I’m not a believer that all jobs will just disappear because of AI. If you think of a job as an assemblage of tasks, there’s no question that the tasks in your job will change because AI will work with you on a bunch of things, and this will in turn reshape your job or role. The people who will thrive through this transformation will be those who engage with curiosity, intellectual rigour, scepticism, creativity, problem-solving and teamwork – and these are the skills and attitudes that are taught by engineering and computational thinking.”
Sir John Lazar, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chair of Trustees, Raspberry Pi Foundation.
At the Raspberry Pi Foundation, we believe AI literacy is crucial for all young people. We also believe all young people need to learn to code to be able to shape our future, where AI systems are integrated into all aspects of life. Our position paper “Why kids still need to learn to code in the age of AI” presents five reasons why:
Our free resources for young people help them learn to code and get creative with technology to bring their ideas into the world, building their confidence. So whether your kids are just starting their coding journey, or are looking for a new challenge, you can use our resources to support them.
Understanding coding and computers is critical in many engineering roles, so inspiring kids about engineering can also motivate them to try their hand at coding.
There are plenty of ways you can celebrate National Engineering Day. Inspire young people to embark on careers in engineering by sharing the AI-Z of Engineering collection with your school or college, on social media, or on your organisation’s website. The collection is a living resource that will be updated, and contributions are always welcome — both for current jobs and future ones.To find out more ways to get involved with National Engineering Day, you can go download the toolkit.
The post Celebrating the UK’s National Engineering Day 2025 appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Lots of kids are excited about robotics, and we have the free resources you need to help your children start making robots.
Did you know that the concept of robotics dates back to ancient Greece, where a mathematician built a self-propelled flying pigeon to understand bird flight? Today, we have robots assisting people in everything from manufacturing to medicine. But what exactly is a robot? Ask two people, and you might get two different answers. Some may tell you about Star Wars’ C3PO and R2D2, while others may tell you about self-driving cars or even toys.
In my view, a robot is a machine that can carry out a series of physical tasks, programmed via a computer. These tasks could range from picking up an object and placing it elsewhere, to navigating a maze, to even assembling a car without human interaction.
My first encounter with robotics was the Big Trak, a programmable toy vehicle created in 1979. You could program up to 16 commands into Big Trak, which it then executed in sequence. My family and I used the toy to transport items to each other around our house. It was a fun and engaging way to explore the basics of robotics and programming.
Understanding something about robotics is not just for scientists and engineers. It involves learning a range of skills that empower your kids to be creators of our digital world, instead of just consumers.
Robotics combines various aspects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in a fun and engaging way. It also encourages young people’s problem-solving abilities, creativity, and critical thinking — skills that are key for the innovators of tomorrow.
What happens when we add machine learning to robotics? Machine learning is an area of artificial intelligence where people design computer systems so they “learn” from data. This is not unlike how people learn from experience. Machine learning can enable robots to adapt to new situations and perform tasks that only people used to do.
We’ve already built robots that can play chess with you, or clean your house, or deliver your food. As people develop machine learning for robotics further, the possibilities are vast. By the time our children start their careers, it might be normal to have robots as software-driven “coworkers”. It’s important that we prepare children for the possible future that robotics and machine learning could open up. We need to empower them to contribute to creating robots with capabilities that complement and benefit all people.
To see what free resources we’re offering to help young people understand and create with machine learning and AI, check out this blog post about our Experience AI learning programme.
So, how can kids start diving into the world of robotics? Here are three online resources to kickstart their journey:
‘Physical computing with Scratch and the Raspberry Pi‘ is a fantastic introduction to using electronics with the block-based Scratch programming language for young learners.
Kids will learn to create interactive stories, games, and animations, all while getting a taste of physical computing. They’ll explore how to use sound and light, and even learn how to create improvised buttons.
This project path introduces the Raspberry Pi Pico, a tiny yet powerful digital device that kids can program using the text-based MicroPython language.
It’s a great way to delve deeper into the world of electronics and programming. The path includes a variety of fun and engaging projects that incorporate crafting and allow children to see the tangible results of their coding efforts.
‘Build a robot’ is a project path that allows young people to create a simple programmable buggy. They can then make it remote-controlled and even transform it so it can follow a line by itself.
This hands-on project path not only teaches the basics of robotics but also encourages problem-solving as kids iteratively improve their robot buggy’s design.
Let’s take a moment to celebrate two young tech creators who love building robots.
Selin is a digital maker from Istanbul, Turkey, who is passionate about robotics and AI. Selin’s journey into the world of digital making began with a wish: after her family’s beloved dog Korsan passed away, she wanted to bring him back to life. This led her to design a robotic dog on paper, and to learn coding and digital making to build that robot.
Selin has since built seven different robotics projects. One of them is IC4U, a robotic guide dog designed to help people with impaired sight. Selin’s commitment to making projects that help make the world a better place was recognised when she was awarded the Aspiring Teen Award by Women in Tech.
Jay, a young digital maker from Preston, UK, started experimenting with code at a young age to make his own games. He attended free local coding groups, such as CoderDojo, and was introduced to the block-based programming language Scratch. Soon, Jay was combining his interests in programming with robotics to make his own inventions.
Jay’s dad, Biren, comments: “With robotics and coding, what Jay has learned is to think outside of the box and without any limits. This has helped him achieve amazing things.”
Robotics and machine learning are not just science fiction — they shape our lives today in ways kids might not even realise. Whether your child is just interested in playing with robots, wants to learn more about them, or is considering a career in robotics, our free resources are a great place to start.
If a Greek mathematician was able to build a flying pigeon millennia ago, imagine what children could create today!
The post Make a robot: A fun and educational journey into robotics for kids appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
We are so excited to share another story from the community! Our series of community stories takes you across the world to hear from young people and educators who are engaging with creating digital technologies in their own personal ways.
In this story we introduce you to Selin, a digital maker from Istanbul, Turkey, who is passionate about robotics and AI. Watch the video to hear how Selin’s childhood pet inspired her to build tech projects that aim to help others live well.
Selin (16) started her digital making journey because she wanted to solve a problem: after her family’s beloved dog Korsan passed away, she wanted to bring him back to life. Selin thought a robotic dog could be the answer, and so she started to design her project on paper. When she found out that learning to code would mean she could actually make a robotic dog, Selin began to teach herself about coding and digital making.
Thanks to her local CoderDojo, which is part of the worldwide CoderDojo network of free, community-based, volunteer-led programming clubs where young people explore digital technology, Selin’s interest in creating tech projects grew and grew. Selin has since built seven robots, and her enthusiasm for building things with digital technology shows no sign of stopping.
One of Selin’s big motivations to explore digital making was having an event to work towards. At her Dojo, Selin found out about Coolest Projects, the global technology showcase for young people. She then set herself the task of making a robot to present at the Coolest Projects event in 2018.
When thinking about ideas for what to make for Coolest Projects, Selin remembered how it felt to lose her dog. She wondered what it must be like when a blind person’s guide dog passes away, as that person loses their friend as well as their support. So Selin decided to make a robotic guide dog called IC4U. She contacted several guide dog organisations to find out how guide dogs are trained and what they need to be able to do so she could replicate their behaviour in her robot. The robot is voice-controlled so that people with impaired sight can interact with it easily.
Selin and her parents travelled to Coolest Projects International in Dublin, thanks to support from the CoderDojo Foundation. Accompanying them was Selin’s project IC4U, which became a judges’ favourite in the Hardware category. Selin enjoyed participating in Coolest Projects so much that she started designing her project for next year’s event straight away:
“When I returned back I immediately started working for next year’s Coolest Projects.”
Selin
Many of Selin’s tech projects share a theme: to help make the world a better place. For example, another robot made by Selin is the BB4All — a school assistant robot to tackle bullying. And last year, while she attended the Stanford AI4ALL summer camp, Selin worked with a group of young people to design a tech project to increase the speed and accuracy of lung cancer diagnoses.
Through her digital making projects, Selin wants to show how people can use robotics and AI technology to support people and their well-being. In 2021, Selin’s commitment to making these projects was recognised when she was awarded the Aspiring Teen Award by Women in Tech.
Listening to Selin, it is inspiring to hear how a person can use technology to express themselves as well as create projects that have the potential to do so much good. Selin acknowledges that sometimes the first steps can be the hardest, especially for girls interested in tech: “I know it’s hard to start at first, but interests are gender-free.”
“Be curious and courageous, and never let setbacks stop you so you can actually accomplish your dream.”
Selin
We have loved seeing all the wonderful projects that Selin has made in the years since she first designed a robot dog on paper. And it’s especially cool to see that Selin has also continued to work on her robot IC4U, the original project that led her to coding, Coolest Projects, and more. Selin’s robot has developed with its maker, and we can’t wait to see what they both go on to do next.
Help us celebrate Selin and inspire other young people to discover coding and digital making as a passion, by sharing her story on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
The post Celebrating the community: Selin appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
As so many CoderDojos around the world, our office-based CoderDojo hadn’t been able to bring learners together in person since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. So we decided that our first time back in the Raspberry Pi Foundation headquarters should be something special. Having literally just launched the new Raspberry Pi Build HAT for programming LEGO® projects with Raspberry Pi computers, we wanted to celebrate our Dojo’s triumphant return to in-person session by offering a ‘LEGO bricks and Raspberry Pi’ activity!
The Raspberry Pi Build HAT allows learners to build and program projects with Raspberry Pi computers and LEGO® Technic™ motors and sensors from the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Portfolio.
What better way could there be to get the more experienced coders among our Dojo’s young people (Ninjas) properly excited to be back? We knew they were fond of building things with LEGO bricks, as so many young people are, so we were sure they would have great fun with this activity!
For our beginners, we set up Raspberry Pi workstations and got them coding the projects on the Home island on our brand-new Code Club World platform, which they absolutely loved, so their jealousy was mitigated somewhat.
Being able to rely on your learners’ existing skills in making the physical build leaves you a lot more time to support them with what they’re actually here to learn: the coding and digital making skills.
We wanted to keep our first Dojo back small, so for the ‘LEGO bricks and Raspberry Pi’ activity, we set up just four workstations, each with a Raspberry Pi 4, with 4GB RAM and a Raspberry Pi Build HAT on top, and a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime set. We put eight participants into teams of two, and made sure that all of them brought a little experience with text-based coding, because we wanted them to be able to focus on making projects in their own style, rather than first learning the basics of coding in Python. Then we offered our Ninjas the choice of the first two projects in the Introduction to the Raspberry Pi Build HAT and LEGO path: make Pong game controllers, or make a remote-controlled robot buggy. As I had predicted, all the teams chose to make a robot buggy!
The teams of Ninjas were immediately off and making — in fact, they couldn’t wait to get the lids off the boxes of brightly coloured bricks and beams!
Our project instructions focus primarily on supporting learners through coding and testing the mechanics of their creations, leaving the design and build totally up to them. This was evidenced by the variety of buggy designs we saw at the project showcase at the end of the two-hour Dojo session!
One of the amazing things Raspberry Pi makes possible when you use it with the Raspberry Pi Build HAT and SPIKE™ Prime set: it’s simple to make the Raspberry Pi at the heart of the creation talk to a mobile device via Bluetooth, and off you go controlling what you’ve created via a phone or tablet.
While beginner-friendly, the projects in the Introduction path involve a mix of coding, testing, designing, and building. So it required focus and solid teamwork for the Ninjas to finish their buggies in time for the project showcase. And this is where building with LEGO pieces was really helpful.
Having LEGO bricks and the Build HAT available to create their Raspberry Pi–powered robot buggies made it easy for our Ninjas to focus on writing the code to get their buggies to work. They weren’t relying on crafting skills or duct tape and glue guns to make a chassis in the relatively short time they had, and the coding could be front and centre for them.
The most exciting part for the Ninjas was that they were building remote-controlled robot buggies. This is one of the amazing things Raspberry Pi makes possible when you use it with the Build HAT and SPIKE™ Prime set: it’s simple to make the Raspberry Pi at the heart of the creation talk to a mobile device via Bluetooth, and off you go controlling what you’ve created via a phone or tablet.
The LEGO Technic motors that are part of the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime set are of really high quality, and they’re super easy to program with the Build HAT and its Python library! You can change the motors’ speed by setting a single parameter in your code. You can also easily write code to set or read the motors’ exact angle (their absolute position). That allows you to finely control the motors’ movements, or to use them as sensors.
Some of our teams, inspired by everything the SPIKE Prime set has to offer, tried out programming the set’s sensors, to switch their robot buggy on or help it avoid obstacles. Because we only had about 90 minutes of digital making, not all teams managed to finish adding the extra features they wanted — but next time for sure!
With a little more time (or another Dojo session), it would have been possible for the Ninjas to make some very advanced remote-controlled buggies indeed, complete with headlights, brake lights, sensors, and sound.
If you have access to LEGO Education SPIKE Prime sets for your learners, then the Raspberry Pi Build HAT is a great addition that allows them to build complex robotics projects with very simple code — but I think that’s not its main benefit.
Because the Build HAT allows your learners to work with LEGO elements, you know that many of them already understand one aspect of the creation process: they’ve got experience of using LEGO bricks to solve a problem. In a coding or STEM club session, or in a classroom lesson, you can only give your learners limited amount of time to complete a project, or get their project prototype to a stable point. So being able to rely on your learners’ existing skills in making the physical build leaves you a lot more time to support them with what they’re actually here to learn: the coding and digital making skills.
The projects using the Raspberry Pi Build HATs were such a hit, we’ll be getting them and the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime sets out at every Dojo session from now on! We’re excited to see what young people around the world will be creating thanks to our new collaboration with LEGO Education.
Have you used the Raspberry Pi Build HAT with your learners or young people at home yet? Share their stories and creations in the comments here, or on social media using #BuildHAT.
The post The Raspberry Pi Build HAT and LEGO® components at our CoderDojo appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
The maker of this robotic waiter had almost all of the parts for this project just sat around collecting dust on a shelf. We’re delighted they decided to take the time to pick up the few extra bits they needed online, then take the extra hour (just an hour?!) to write a program in Python to get this robotic waiter up and running.
We are also thrilled to report (having spotted it in the reddit post we found this project on) that the maker had “so much fun picking up and sometimes crushing small things with this claw.” The line between serving drinks and wanting to crush things is thinner than you might imagine.
And in even better news, all the code you need to recreate this build is on GitHub.
One of our favourite things about finding Raspberry Pi-powered projects on reddit is the comments section. It’s (usually) the perfect mix of light adoration, constructive suggestions, and gateways to tangents we cannot ignore.
Like this one recalling the Rick and Morty sketch in which a cute tiny robot realises their sole purpose is to pass butter:
And also this one pointing us to another robotic arm having a grand old time picking up a tiny ball, sending it down a tiny slide, and then doing it all over again. Because it’s important we know how to make our own fun:
We also greatly enjoyed the fact that the original maker couldn’t use the Rick and Morty “what is my purpose” line to share this project because they are such an uber fan that they already used it for a project they posted just the day before. This cute creation’s sole reason for existing is to hold an Apple pencil while looking fabulous. And we are HERE for it:
The post Robotic waiter learning to serve drinks appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
We’re excited to share another incredible story from the community — the second in our new series of inspirational short films that celebrate young tech creators across the world.
These stories showcase some of the wonderful things that young people are empowered to do when they learn how to create with technology. We hope that they will inspire many more young people to get creative with technology too!
This time, you will meet an accomplished, young community member who is on a quest to encourage more girls to join her and get into digital making.
For as long as she can remember, Avye (13) has enjoyed creating things. It was at her local CoderDojo that seven-year-old Avye was introduced to the world of robotics. Avye’s second-ever robot, the Raspberry Pi–powered Voice O’Tronik Bot, went on to win the Hardware category at our Coolest Projects UK event in 2018.
Coding and digital making have become an integral part of Avye’s life, and she wants to help other girls discover these skills too. She says, “I believe that it’s important for girls and women to see and be aware of ordinary girls and women doing cool things in the STEM world.” Avye started running her own workshops for girls in their community and in 2018 founded Girls Into Coding. She has now teamed up with her mum Helene, who is committed to helping to drive the Girls Into Coding mission forwards.
I want to get other girls like me interested in tech.
Avye
Avye has received multiple awards to celebrate her achievements, including the Princess Diana Award and Legacy Award in 2019. Most recently, in 2020, Avye won the TechWomen100 Award, the Women in Tech’s Aspiring Teen Award, and the FDM Everywoman in Tech Award!
We cannot wait to see what the future has in store for her. Help us celebrate Avye and inspire others by liking and sharing her story on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook!
The post Celebrating the community: Avye appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
You in the community seemed so impressed with this recent Boston Dynamics–inspired build that we decided to feature another. This time, maker Harry was inspired by Boston Dynamics’ research robot Handle, which stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4 feet vertically. Here’s how Harry made his miniature version, MABEL (Multi Axis Balancer Electronically Levelled).
MABEL has individually articulated legs to enhance off-road stability, prevent it from tipping, and even make it jump (if you use some really fast servos). Harry is certain that anyone with a 3D printer and a “few bits” can build one.
MABEL builds on the open-source YABR project for its PID controller, and it’s got added servos and a Raspberry Pi that helps interface them and control everything.
Thanks to a program based on the open-source YABR firmware, an Arduino handles all of the PID calculations using data from an MPU-6050 accelerometer/gyro. Raspberry Pi, using Python code, manages Bluetooth and servo control, running an inverse kinematics algorithm to translate the robot legs perfectly in two axes.
If you want to attempt this project yourself, the files for all the hard 3D-printed bits are on Thingiverse, and all the soft insides are on GitHub.
IKSolve is the class that handles the inverse kinematics functionality for MABEL (IKSolve.py) and allows for the legs to be translated using (x, y) coordinates. It’s really simple to use: all that you need to specify are the home values of each servo (these are the angles that, when passed over to your servos, make the legs point directly and straight downwards at 90 degrees).
MABEL is designed to work by listening to commands on the Arduino (PID contoller) end that are sent to it by Raspberry Pi over serial using pySerial. Joystick data is sent to Raspberry Pi using the Input Python library. Harry first tried to get the joystick data from an old PlayStation 3 controller, but went with the PiHut’s Raspberry Pi Compatible Wireless Gamepad in the end for ease.
Keep up with Harry’s blog or give Raspibotics a follow on Twitter, as part 3 of his build write-up should be dropping imminently, featuring updates that will hopefully get MABEL jumping!
The post Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot recreated with Raspberry Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Three things we like: Blade Runner, robots, and cocktails. That’s why we LOVE Donald Bell‘s Raspberry Pi–packed ‘VK-01 Off-World Bartender‘ cocktail making machine.
This machine was due to be Donald’s entry into the Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge, an annual event in San Francisco. By the time the event was cancelled, he was too deep into his awesome build to give up, so he decided to share it with the Instructables community instead.
Donald wanted users to get as much interaction and feedback as possible, rather than simply pressing a button and receiving a random drink. So with this machine, the interaction comes in four ways: instructions provided on the screen, using a key card to bypass security, placing and removing a cup on the tray, and entering an order number on the keypad.
In addition to that, feedback is provided by way of lighting changes, music, video dialogue, pump motors whirring, and even the clicks of relays at each stage of the cocktail making process.
The keypad allows people to punch in a number to trigger their order, like on a vending machine. The drink order is sent to the Hello Drinkbot software running on the Raspberry Pi 3B that controls the pumps.
In order for the machine to be able to tell when a vessel is placed under the dispenser spout, and when it’s removed, Donald built in a switch under a 3D-printed tray. Provided the vessel has at least one ice cube in it, even the lightest plastic up is heavy enough to trigger the switch.
Cocktail machine customers are asked to scan a special ID card to start. To make this work, Donald adapted a sample script that blinks the card reader’s internal LED when any RFID card is detected.
This bit is made possible by MP4Museum, a “bare-bones” kiosk video player software that the second Raspberry Pi inside the machine runs on boot. By connecting a switch to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO, Donald enabled customers to advance through the videos one by one. And yes, that’s an official Raspberry Pi Touch Display.
Donald used the Python-based Hello Drinkbot software as the brains of the machine. With it, you can configure which liquors or juices are connected to which pumps, and send instructions on exactly how much to pour of each ingredient. Everything is configured via a web interface.
Via a bank of relays, microcontrollers connect all the signals from the Touch Display, keypad, RFID card reader, and switch under the spout.
Donald shared an exhaustive kit list on his original post, but basically, what you’re looking at is…
And finally, check out the Raspberry Pi–based Hello Drinkbot project by Rich Gibson, which inspired Donald’s build.
The post Raspberry Pi Off-World Bartender appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
This is a ‘Spot Micro’ walking quadruped robot running on Raspberry Pi 3B. By building this project, redditor /thetrueonion (aka Mike) wanted to teach themself robotic software development in C++ and Python, get the robot walking, and master velocity and directional control.
Mike was inspired by Spot, one of Boston Dynamics’ robots developed for industry to perform remote operation and autonomous sensing.
The mini ‘Spot Micro’ bot rocks a three-axis angle command/body pose control mode via keyboard and can achieve ‘trot gait’ or ‘walk gait’. The former is a four-phase gait with symmetric motion of two legs at a time (like a horse trotting). The latter is an eight-phase gait with one leg swinging at a time and a body shift in between for balance (like humans walking).
Mike breaks down how they got the robot walking, right down to the order the servos need to be connected to the PCA9685 control board, in this extensive walkthrough.
And yes, this is one of those magical projects with all the code you need stored on GitHub. The software is implemented on a Raspberry Pi 3B running Ubuntu 16.04. It’s composed on C++ and Python nodes in a ROS framework.
Mike isn’t finished yet: they are looking to improve their yellow beast by incorporating a lidar to achieve simple 2D mapping of a room. Also on the list is developing an autonomous motion-planning module to guide the robot to execute a simple task around a sensed 2D environment. And finally, adding a camera or webcam to conduct basic image classification would finesse their creation.
The post Mini Raspberry Pi Boston Dynamics–inspired robot appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Meet Callum Fawcett, who shares his journey from tinkering with the first Raspberry Pi while he was at school, to a Master’s degree in computer science and a real-life job in programming. We also get to see some of the awesome projects he’s made along the way.
Most of my learning was done through two sources. I learnt Linux and how the terminal worked using online resources such as Stack Overflow. I would have a problem that I needed to solve, look up solutions online, and try out commands that I found. This was perhaps the hardest part of learning how to use a Raspberry Pi, as it was something I had never done before, but it really helped me in later years when I would use Linux more than Windows. For learning programming, I preferred to use books. I had a book for C++ and a book for Python that I would work through. These were game-based books, so many of the fun projects that I did were simple text-based games where you typed in responses to questions.
The first robot Callum made using a Raspberry Pi
By far the coolest project I did with the Raspberry Pi was to build a small robot (shown above). This was a joint project between myself and my dad. He sorted out the electronics and I programmed the robot. It was a great opportunity to learn about robotics and refine my programming skills. By the end, the robot was capable of moving around by itself, driving into objects, and then reversing and trying a new direction. It was almost like an unintelligent Roomba that couldn’t hoover, but I spent many hours improving small bits and pieces to make it as easy to use as possible. My one wish that I never managed to achieve with my robot was allowing it to map out its surroundings. This was a very ambitious project at the time, since I was still quite inexperienced in programming. The biggest problem with this was calibrating the robot’s turning circle, which was never consistent so it was very hard to have the robot know where in the room it was.
Another fun project that I worked on used the Sense HAT developed for the Astro Pi computers for use on the International Space Station. Using this, I was able to make a memory maze game (shown below), in which a player is shown a maze for several seconds and then has to navigate that maze from memory by shaking the device. This was my first introduction to using more interactive types of input, and this eventually led to my final-year project, which used these interesting interactions to develop another way of teaching.
I have now just finished my Master’s degree in computer science at the University of Bristol. Before going to university, I had no experience of being taught programming in a formal environment. It was not a taught subject at my secondary school or sixth form. I wanted to get more people at my school interested in this area of study though, which I did by running a coding club for people. I would help others debug their code and discuss interesting problems with them. The reason that I chose to study computer science is largely because of my experiences with Raspberry Pi and other programming I did in my own time during my teenage years. I likely would have studied history if it weren’t for the programming I had done by myself making robots and other games.
Raspberry Pi has continued to play a part in my degree and extra-curricular activities; I used them in two large projects during my time at university and used a similar device in my final project. My robot experience also helped me to enter my university’s ‘Robot Wars’ competition which, though we never won, was a lot of fun.
Having a Raspberry Pi is always useful during a hackathon, because it’s such a versatile component. Tech like Raspberry Pi will always be useful for beginners to learn the basics of programming and electronics, but these computers are also becoming more and more useful for people with more experience to make fun and useful projects. I could see tech like Raspberry Pi being used in the future to help quickly prototype many types of electronic devices and, as they become more powerful, even being used as an affordable way of controlling many types of robots, which will become more common in the future.
Our guest blogger Callum
Now I am going on to work on programming robot control systems at Ocado Technology. My experiences of robot building during my years before university played a large part in this decision. Already, robots are becoming a huge part of society, and I think they are only going to become more prominent in the future. Automation through robots and artificial intelligence will become one of the most important tools for humanity during the 21st century, and I look forward to being a part of that process. If it weren’t for learning through Raspberry Pi, I certainly wouldn’t be in this position.
Cheers for your story, Callum! Has tinkering with our tiny computer inspired your educational or professional choices? Let us know in the comments below.
The post Learning with Raspberry Pi — robotics, a Master’s degree, and beyond appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
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