Last week’s Cracking the Code had a segment featuring a very familiar little computer, and a guy with a weather balloon whom you might just recognise. Isn’t it interesting how much more technical detail this kids’ show goes into compared to some of the adult tech news coverage we see on TV? Thanks to everyone involved – especially Dave!
[Update: looks like this video isn't available for viewers outside the UK - sorry if you're affected!]
We saw a lovely segment today on the BBC’s technology news programme, Click, all about the hackspace movement in the UK, with a big emphasis on Pi.
If you’re in the UK and want to see this on your TV, watch Click on BBC News in the UK (Saturday 0130, 1130, 1530 and 2030; Sunday 0430, 0745, 1130, 1530 and 2030; Monday 0030) or BBC World News (Saturday 0830 and 1630 GMT; Sunday 0430 and 1330 GMT). It’ll also appear on iPlayer soon. (Thanks to Ben on Facebook for the broadcast times!)
Alec Clews in the comments says: If you are outside the UK it’s also at BBC World News – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0154nlx. Thanks Alec!
BBC Radio Wales’ Science Cafe programme this week came from the Sony factory in Pencoed, Wales, that makes the Raspberry Pi for us under licence. It’s only available for UK listeners (my mistake – the BBC’s territorial thingbat doesn’t extend to radio broadcasts, so you can listen anywhere in the world – as long as you aren’t Gert, who is still having problems), and only for the next five days.
It’s a half hour’s broadcast well worth listening to. Listen out for the dulcet tones of the inestimable Gareth Jones, who is in charge of things Pi at the factory. He gives an in-depth explanation of what’s going on on the factory floor; you’ll learn details about the production process that we haven’t talked about here on the blog before.
You’ll also hear from Eben (who was interviewed on the phone from a hotel room in the US last week at about four in the morning, which explains why he sounds so tired), and Gerald Kelly, the General Manager of the facility, who talks about how the Pi came to be made in Wales, and who is awfully tactful and nice about stuff like last year’s near-disaster with the mag jacks that got swapped out without our knowledge in China. Tom Crick, from CAS Wales, also pops up to talk about Pi in schools – and best of all, the broadcast team visits the Machynlleth Raspberry Jam, which is set up by school pupils Luke and Robert. It’s a great programme, and worth putting on for half an hour in the background while you get on with the rest of your day.
Here’s a link to listen to it: let us know what you think in the comments!
The BBC’s news videos usually aren’t embeddable until a day or so after their first release, so you’ll have to go to the BBC News website to watch this, but it’s well worth the click.
Pete, some primary school students, and ten Raspberry Pis. (That's Sue looking on from the corridor.) Click the image to watch on the BBC website.
Our good friends Dr Sue Black of the GoTo Foundation, and Pete Wood from RS Components, took a class of seven to nine year-olds (years 3 and 4) at St Matthew’s Church of England Primary School in Surbiton, Surrey, and got them programming the Raspberry Pi in Python as part of a GoTo Foundation event. The results were pretty fantastic – the kids were buzzing, got playing with embedded hardware as well as software, and gave us all a neat demonstration of just how tractable and enjoyable programming can be for children, if they’re only given the opportunity to dig a little into it.
Some kids of this age have trouble with the dexterity needed to type accurately (which is one of the reasons we recommend Scratch for younger students), and this is reflected in the video; it can be very frustrating to type a piece of code in over and over and keep getting it wrong. But others were flying with the Raspberry Pi, and were clearly more than ready to tackle some Python, getting lots out of the experience.
We’re really proud to see so many happy faces from the lesson. Work continues on getting stuff ready for the schools release (which will also include cases for the Raspberry Pi) later in the year. We hope to see lots more of this kind of teaching session to come.
Fortunately for us all, I did find some coffee on arrival in America (not to mention a macrobiotic breakfast involving a surprising amount of raw cabbage – you’ve got to love California). A whole day away from the network means I’ve got a great big heap of email, so I’ll be a bit quiet on the forums and Twitter today while I deal with it and this afternoon’s meetings.
Our friend Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC has been tinkering with a Raspberry Pi with the help of Isabell Long, an 18-year old A-level student. Thanks to both!
CNET Asia calls the Raspberry Pi a “very inedible pocket-sized computer”. We’d say that was pretty much on the money.
More reviews are popping up at the moment as more people get their hands on units (we notice that many element14 customers have been getting delivery date emails today). I’ll be putting some of the more interesting ones up here as they appear.
This video was on yesterday’s Look East, and has just appeared on the BBC’s website. It’s only two minutes long – enjoy!