Science Museum Great British Innovation

15th of March 2013 by liz

The Science Museum has shortlisted the Raspberry Pi in its competition to find the great British innovations of the 21st Century. We’d love it if you could vote Pi!

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25 comments

The Raspberry Pi is a great idea but at the end of the day it is just a computer in a new form factor. I hope it does meet its goals of igniting an interest in computing in young people but some of the other things on there are genuinely new and offer potential to change the world for the better. Sorry I voted for the eye gene therapy.

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Andrew Scheller on
March 15, 2013 at 3:35 pm said:

My feelings too – I voted for the Higgs Boson – who knows *what* kind of stuff that might lead to?!

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- Jim Manley on
  March 16, 2013 at 4:00 pm said:
  
  Ummm, we already know what the Higgs boson will lead to … EVERYTHING THAT HAS MASS!!! Higgs ain’t heavy, it’s my boson …
  
  Comment ↓
  - Andrew Scheller on
    March 17, 2013 at 1:15 pm said:
    
    I *think* I’d be able to survive without a RasPi, but I’m not sure how well I’d manage without any mass
    
    Comment ↓

Wow, you’ve got some great competitors. Graphene, the Higgs Boson, various medical applications …
No doubt you will win this competition though (you always do, and you deserve it).
The fact that you have a large community/fanbase around you, and the fact that you have a tangible product (unlike e.g. Higgs Boson) that is already available for everyone to use (unlike e.g. graphene) will be a huge advantage I think.

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I’d like to vote for the Pi however it just really does not deserve to be short listed. Its nothing more than a re-formatting of existing technology. It is not anywhere near as world changing as the other short listed inventions.

Don’t get me wrong I love the Pi and what it is aiming to do. I truly hope it does inspire a new generation to take up computer science.

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that your post triggered enough response (within minutes) to crash the innovation prize site is a bit of a give-away

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The Innovation Test can only be determined through hindsight. You can invent something but if it’s sitting on the shelf only to be lost in the Indiana Jones Warehouse, then it hasn’t accomplished anything. Innovate means it’s being used by the world, and changes the way people do/make things, and simply not a fad. It seems to make more sense to vote for past innovations because we can see what it has accomplished.

The Raspberry Pi and this blog is a testimony of the possibilities of what can be done, and shows the potential of it being a true innovator. Higgs Boson, as amazing and high-profile as it may be, seems to be just a discover that may lead to other things, but I’m skeptic about how it will ignite anything. (Same with black holes and theory of relativity, and all those other things they figure out in space).

You can choose by the “greatest good”, “affecting the most number of people” or “coolest/favorite”, but overall seems to be a popularity contest.

I think the “Department of Business Innovation and Skills” may be trying to confuse us by creating a contest to bring attention to engineering in the UK.

But then after all that, and thinking about it, I do think the Pi has my vote. It is rather down-to-earth (not Pi in the sky, pardon the pun), possibly very ubiquitous in many areas, and useable by the common man, fitting nicely in the “internet of things”.

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Andrew Scheller on
March 15, 2013 at 5:21 pm said:

“…but overall seems to be a popularity contest”
Isn’t that true of any contest in which the winner gets decided by public vote?

Even though I didn’t vote for it myself, with the fan-base the RasPi has I’d be surprised if it didn’t still end up winning – it already has more than twice as many votes as the current second-place entry!

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- elmsley on
  March 15, 2013 at 5:54 pm said:
  
  Haha yes, but only those which have no judging criteria, or requirement to justify why it received so many points in certain areas.
  
  In fact, they should just come straight out and say it is a “Which is your favourite?” contest, but they never do. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it..
  
  Comment ↓
- Andrew Scheller on
  March 16, 2013 at 3:41 am said:
  
  LOL, a few hours later and the RasPi now has more than 5 times the number of votes as the second-place entry.
  
  UNSTOPPABLE! (in the voice of the Unreal Tournament commentator)
  
  Comment ↓

A difficult one I agree, I need time to think about. as others say a cheap computer vs some of the other amazing entries

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My vote has been placed. The Raspberry Pi has been the only thing to keep me up until the early hours of the morning since I got it last year. Thats got to be a good thing

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According to the site, the vote is for the “recent [innovation] most likely to shape our future”.
Considering the tinkering, have-a-go, shed-based environments in which most of these innovations (and the past ones) have been created, I think the Pi will have the greatest impact on future UK innovation, because of it’s educational impact.

I caught an awesome BBC program here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r9tww
BBC2 educational programme, titled “Cracking the code”. Lots of brilliantly presented explanation of code, applications of code and many, many excellent uses of the Raspberry Pi.

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Helen Lynn on
March 15, 2013 at 9:25 pm said:

Permanent link to the Pi ballooning clip from that programme, copied from Dave Akerman’s blog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01661f7

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- Dave Akerman on
  March 17, 2013 at 10:02 am said:
  
  I’m really pleased with how it came out. Also it’s interesting that there was far more techie content in that show, aimed at kids of course, than I’ve seen included in any “adult” show that covered a high-altitude balloon flight.
  
  Comment ↓

I think it’s supposed to be an innovation with highest future potential – printing human organs for drug testing (->fewer animal experiments) and future implantable organs – got my vote.
But the competition was initiated by Cambridge Uni and RaspberryPi is based in….

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The vote was for the 20th century.
The Raspberry Pi is a 21st century development. So I voted for one of the others . sorry. there is an integrity to maintain.

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Andrew Scheller on
March 16, 2013 at 3:49 am said:

There’s two votes – “past innovations” from the 20th century, and “future innovations” from the 21st century. The Raspi is in the latter category.

Although if I was being pedantic I wouldn’t say that putting the Pi in “Decade: 2000″ was right!

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It’s difficult to say what is the invention of the 21st century when there are 87 years left of it.

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liz on
March 16, 2013 at 3:41 pm said:

I have to say, I do kind of agree. (But vote Pi!)

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- Ian Drury on
  March 18, 2013 at 9:41 pm said:
  
  I did vote Pi.
  
  Comment ↓

Not that the Pi is unworthy or anything, but how can you vote for an innovation of the century when there’s still more than 85 years of it left to run?

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Ah, the ever-present zero-based computing Off-By-One Error … in all the confusion I lost track … was it 20 centuries, or was it 21? Do ya feel lucky today, punk? Well, do ya?

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Wooh! Raspberry Pi is beyond mainstream and going into the history books.

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Buy a Pi!

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