pictures | Raspberry Pi

Kids and their Raspberry Pis

A picture post today; I thought it was time to remind you all what this project’s really about. Thanks to all the proud parents who sent photos in!

Emma, age 4

Ben, age 11

Robin, age 8, who set the Raspberry Pi up very competently on his own using the Quick Start guide.

Peter, age 65, and Sam, age 10 - and some LEGO

Mikey, age 4. Dad says: "Mikey is more excited than me (only just). Now I know how my father felt when he brought home the ZX." Mikey wants to be a software developer like his Dad when he grows up.

Megan, age 5

Lexy (10) and Margaret (9) - a couple of friends making games in Scratch after school.

Lautaro, age 3 (in blue), and his brother Joaquin, age 2 (in red)

And Lautaro again, with a very fine case made from Rasti, a LEGO-alike from Argentina.

James, age 10

Jac, age 7.

Here's Jac again. He is writing a game called "Animal Fury", and says it will be "Like Monkey Quest but awesome because you can choose polar bears and they shoot guns." Thanks Jac (and thanks Dad!)

Harry, age 15, using a Raspberry Pi at school.

Sophie, 6, and Emma, 4, demo their Raspberry Pi for Granny.

Sophie and Emma's first bit of Python, constructing nonsense sentences. Sophie has also written a two-player noughts and crosses game.

Emily, age 5. There's something funny about this one, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Ella is 2 and a half. She's using GCompris, which is a great educational software choice for really little kids; it's designed for children aged 2-10. Click the picture to visit Ella's Dad's blog, with lots more Ella pics.

Daisy, age 4

Cohen, age 8

Ameera, age 10

Thanks again to all the parents who let us use these pictures, and especially to all the kids!

Some pictures from Maker Faire Bay Area

The Bay Area Maker Faire is the big daddy of all the Maker Faires, and boy, do my feet hurt after two days running up and down its exhibition halls and fairgrounds. Eben did two presentations on stage (both have been videoed, and we’ll make them available when the editing guys have done their magic); we spoke to a kajillion or so members of the press and recorded some podcasts (links to come) and video (ditto) interviews, and we met a lot of friends old and new from the Raspberry Pi forums – it’s been particularly good to put faces to names like SeanD, Bakul, Simon Monk and Jim Manley. I am missing loads of you out; it was fantastic to meet so many of you.

There are simply no words to describe what a Maker Faire is like. Cross Mad Max with My Little Pony, a flamethrower and a handful of resistors, and you’re part-way there. Here are some pictures.

We don't know what the flaming umbrella thing behind Eben is, but we want one for the office.

Motorised cupcakes. These give you a hell of a shock when they sneak up behind you.

Liz buys some art. (It's from www.unusualcards.com - Francesca also does non-blasphemous subjects. Click the picture to visit her website. This is going in my study.)

One of the guys from Dual Core Music asked Eben to rap with him. Remarkably, he did.

We surprised Joey Hudy, maker and White House Science Fair honouree, with a Raspberry Pi. Can't wait to see what he does with it. (In this photo I appear to have spotted something hilarious in the corner of the ceiling. I go to useless bits when there are cameras and microphones around.)

Eben has spent the whole of the last three days doing interviews (this one with Matt Richardson from Make)...

…and more interviews. This one's with Hak5, who have some interesting plans for their Raspberry Pi. Yes, that's a scrap-metal dragon with a flaming nostril over the interviewer's shoulder.

A rare quiet moment, brainstorming for a panel discussion with Matt, the guys from element14 and Ben Heck, King of the Modders.

And I realised a childhood dream. I was, for the six seconds it took to take this picture, the happiest person in the entire Western Hemisphere.

I’ll be linking to a few of the video and print interviews we did over the last few days when they go live. What a weekend!

And the unboxings begin…

17.30, April 17: A lot of people are now posting their own first startup and unboxing pictures and videos in this thread on our forums – please drop by and join in!

There are unboxing pictures and videos all over the place at the moment, now some lucky folk’s Raspberry Pis have turned up on the doorstep. I’ve chosen a few at random, along with a couple of pictures of what people have been doing with their Raspberry Pi in the first few hours they’ve been running them. Now, I know some of you are driven mad with jealousy by these, if what you were saying on Twitter yesterday is anything to go by. So this will be our only unboxings post – make the most of it, everybody else!

First up, video from Tec Team Ltd. The game of rugby they play with the box at the start had me feeling queasy – thank God (or, alternatively, the good people at element14) for the padded packaging.

Alex Rathbone has Legends of Yore running on his Raspi already

101blog has a post-unboxing video and a desk that’s even messier than mine.

Simon Owen had SimCoupe, a SAM Coupe emulator, running on his Raspberry Pi within a very short time of getting his hands on it.

Some more unboxing on Tumblr (unembeddable, so you’ll have to follow the link to watch the video).

An unboxing picture set on Facebook.

A post from raspi.co.uk, a Raspberry Pi fansite.

And here are our very own Liam’s unboxing pics (which are really rather good, especially the one with the unmade bed in the background).

On Twitter, @hobbsy discovers his Raspberry Pi will not fit in an Altoids tin. A chorus of "Didn't you read the FAQ?" ensues.

Easter picture post

Jimmy’s sent over a some pictures taken during the setup for a couple of last week’s tests. I know a lot of you were interested in seeing what the inside of an anechoic testing chamber looks like. When you’re done geeking out, scroll down to the bottom for a bonus picture from a pub toilet. (Nothing to do with our EMC testing, but it has a bearing on CE marks of more than one kind.)

Radiative immunity test - the Raspberry Pi is at the front right corner of the table. The video camera at the left is for monitoring output while we run the test.

Setup for testing radiative emissions. The device standing against the wall at the left is a microwave horn for receiving frequencies above 1GHz.

So: the pub toilet thing. In the last week or so, we’ve all been hyperaware of any CE marks in our immediate environment because of all the work we’ve been doing to make sure we are allowed to use one. CE stands for Conformité Européenne, meaning “European Conformity”; it’s a mark which shows that the product it’s on conforms to whatever European directives govern the product type.

We’ve been particularly interested to observe all kinds of things, electronic and otherwise, which carry a mark which looks a lot like the CE mark, but which doesn’t mean Conformité Européenne. The other mark means China Export – you can see the difference between the two marks in this picture. It’s a sneaky-clever way some people try to get around the regulations.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

So I was really creeped out when I spotted the machine below in the ladies’ loo in a Norwich pub this lunchtime. Compare the symbol reading “CE” at the bottom to the ones above. (Yes, that is my glowing face reflected next to the lime. I do not actually have a unibrow; it’s lighting.)

Eugh.

Don’t rely on banana-flavour condoms.