Indonesia computers for schools

[scologic]

Liz and Mod's and anyone else willing to participate..

I've been aproached by a couple of guys trying to setup some computers for schools in indonesia in the next 6 months with a budget of zero on a not for profit basis.
Is Raspberrypi going to be supporting these kind of projects by the end of the year? If so what is the deal helping a rural island community in indonesia to get 8 - 10 computers for their school.(we're looking for a way to get dvi screens to use with the board).

[bodgybrothers]

The price of $35 of the raspberry pi sounds like good value, but when you start to use it as a full computer it becomes much more costly. It's like saying, I have 4 wheels, now I want to build a car.

Just consider the 3 options you have:

1. Netbook – 2.5million Rupiah at any store

2. Raspberry pi + Postage + power adaptor + case + screen + keyboard + mouse + SD card = 2million Rupiah

3. Cheap android tablet from a low cost manufacture + keyboard = 3 million Rupiah

You end up spending as much on the Raspberry Pi as the netbook itself and you get more function from a netbook and more ram. I think the purpose of the raspberry Pi is to allow developers a cheap entry into making embedded systems on a relatively powerful board. Not really to turn it into a computer.

Just something to think about when working on these types of projects.

[morphy_richards]

I understood that the price will be fixed worlwide and will be inclusive of postage. (Am hunting around for that now)

Is it worth looking for donors of mice, monitors and keyboards? (as long as they have dv-in)

Have they investigated sponsorship or charity? Many organisations would be happy to be involved in that sort of thing.

(edit - just noticed this thread is really old. Hope you got somewhere with this project though)

[nick.mccloud]

bodgybrothers said:


I think the purpose of the raspberry Pi is to allow developers a cheap entry into making embedded systems on a relatively powerful board. Not really to turn it into a computer.


The purpose is to provide a learning platform for kids that reuses items commonly found in most (1st world) households - thereby making it relatively cheap as most have a TV, keyboard, mouse and so forth. By using composite output it is in reach of many other households too.

I'm sure as the project evolves the needs of other demographics will be addressed.

morphy_richards said:


I understood that the price will be fixed worlwide and will be inclusive of postage. (Am hunting around for that now)


The price of the board is fixed but does not include postage, tax, import duty or any other country variable costs.

[Myra]

nmcc is 100% correct with regards to the aim of the Raspberry Pi computer. The main motivator was and is to get children in the UK programming again. All households will have a TV that you can plug an RPi into, and the many will also have a USB phone charger. Many households have laptops as their main computers, so they may not have USB mice and keyboards hanging around, but those things are pretty cheap.

People in many other 1st world countries are interested in the RPi, which is nice, and there is also a large interest from people interested in using it for embedded applications and from people in the developing world. bodgybrothers is right in one thing: if you don't have these things already in your house, then the cost is not tremendously different to other computers. At the moment, anyway. The reason the RPi is so cheap is that you are not being charged for any of the software nor really for the time and expertise required to create the chip and circuit board. Perhaps in time something similar can be done for the extras, such as the monitor/TV, and then it will be a real win for developing countries like Indonesia.

[Jaseman]

I could provide you with 8 working Pentium 4 computers with Windows XP (licensed) and complete with flat screens - free of charge, but you will have to collect them from Rossett, which is village between Chester and Wrexham in North Wales.