Pi advice - not Pie...

[IDMark2]

My son is 10 and showing aptitude at school for programming, indeed he was selected for a recent Gifted and Talented group his school and sent to Exeter University for a coding session for a day.

I was thinking I'd encourage him by buying him a Raspberry Pi kit for Christmas but there appear to be many variants and sellers offering bundles of kits.(It sort of makes me think it's today's equivalent of the electronics kit I had 40 years ago!) At school I believe they have been using the Kanos environment.

I'm a little confused as to what would make a good kit for him, which OS, how much memory etc. I can provide him with a repurposed HDMI monitor from an old long dead desktop but some kits seem to include a casing, keyboard and mouse etc.. I suppose the quality of those varies...

I'm not completely tech illiterate but are there any current Pi'ers who can guide me?
Thanks.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

My son is 10 and showing aptitude at school for programming, indeed he was selected for a recent Gifted and Talented group his school and sent to Exeter University for a coding session for a day.

I was thinking I'd encourage him by buying him a Raspberry Pi kit for Christmas but there appear to be many variants and sellers offering bundles of kits.(It sort of makes me think it's today's equivalent of the electronics kit I had 40 years ago!) At school I believe they have been using the Kanos environment.

I'm a little confused as to what would make a good kit for him, which OS, how much memory etc. I can provide him with a repurposed HDMI monitor from an old long dead desktop but some kits seem to include a casing, keyboard and mouse etc.. I suppose the quality of those varies...

I'm not completely tech illiterate but are there any current Pi'ers who can guide me?
Thanks.

I have a feeling that our resident Piemaster, @vernon is also familiar with Pis. Maybe even the Mannekin Pis....

 

[classic33]

Aware there's been a recent(last month) release of a new version.

 

[IDMark2]

I have a feeling that our resident Piemaster, @vernon is also familiar with Pis. Maybe even the Mannekin Pis....

I was going to DM him but I thought perhaps, with the disappearance of SciTech, there would be a few refugees with an interest in what comes up from this too...

 

[annedonnelly]

I was at a lecture last year from a guy working in schools with Raspberry Pi. I think he was from Computing at School though it could've been Code Club.

Might be worth you seeing if either group has a local contact who can point you in the right direction or even get your son involved in one of their groups.

The lecture was interesting but sadly ruined by problems connecting to the university network so we spent much of the time watching the Pi being rebooted.

 

[Aperitif]

2pieAhhhh. The Vernon theory of waistline economy. God luck to your son, Mark - hope you get a 'slice' of the action too.

 

[Andy_R]

There is a new version of Scratch which makes use of the Pis GPIO and camera - Scratch is very popular in schools so will tie in with what he is being taught at school.

 

[IDMark2]

There is a new version of Scratch which makes use of the Pis GPIO and camera - Scratch is very popular in schools so will tie in with what he is being taught at school.

Scratch does ring a bell. Unfortunately my children don't live with me so some of their day to day lives and information about it is filtered through the ex and what I get direct from him myself, ie once a fortnight (he has difficulty remembering what he had for lunch today sometimes..)

 

[MartinQ]

Would imagine learning python with raspberry pi would be the way to go rather than scratch if he's looking to develop, scratch seems to be introduced at ~year 4 and then move onto something like python
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/

Also some good game / python books (some free) using a traditional PC and standard introduction to programming using procedural language.

 

[accountantpete]

You probably need a R Pi 2 Model B as it is called - the latest (apart from the $5 starter one).

This is a lot quicker than the old model 1.

I would get a kit with an 8GB card with NOOBS OS loaded - you can change it later and even get a version of Windows 10.

And when he gets bored you can purloin it and install Openelec

 

[IDMark2]

He has shown interest in Python already, his teacher was going to get him started in extra lunchtime sessions...
Regardless of the developing and software as such - this can always be changed as necessary later I believe - I was interested in what may be recommended in terms of the resellers and their starter packages.

Thanks acp, just seen your post come up...

 

[accountantpete]

He has shown interest in Python already, his teacher was going to get him started in extra lunchtime sessions...
Regardless of the developing and software as such - this can always be changed as necessary later I believe - I was interested in what may be recommended in terms of the resellers and their starter packages.

Thanks acp, just seen your post come up...

There are some kits for Home Cinema and Camera use etc but you really need a basic kit like the CPC one - top Company for electricals. You will need a mini HDMI to whatever cable as well for the monitor.

http://cpc.farnell.com/raspberry-pi...y-pi-2-model-b-starter/dp/SC13799?CMP=CPC-PLA

There are also Touch Screen displays coming out don't know much about those though.

 

[vernon]

I was going to DM him but I thought perhaps, with the disappearance of SciTech, there would be a few refugees with an interest in what comes up from this too...

I'll get back to you when I get home.

 

[IDMark2]

I'll get back to you when I get home.

Thank you vernon.

 

[Yellow Fang]

They used to sell kits in Maplins. I expect they still do. They included keyboard, mouse, Raspberry Pi, this and that. The peripherals add up in price if you don't have any handy. I believe the new Raspberry Pi's are better than the first ones. The first ones were painfully slow. Some Raspberry Pi's come with memory cards pre-programmed; others you have to program yourself, which is not very hard if you know what you're doing. You don't actually need a Raspberry Pi to learn programming. You could install Python on any old laptop or PC. If you wanted to could install Linux on an old laptop off ebay, install Python and away you go.