Hello,
Does anyone have any experience of the Raspberry Pi 400?
Thinking of getting one for Sam/Amy and me to play with for Christmas.
Sam has an interest in coding etc. and I thought this may help?
The only other PC we have at present is an old lenovo laptop.
Would you like a pc? Not the newest or quickest. But it runs on Win10. Was just clearing stuff off the disk before giving it away.
The 400 is a Pi4 in a nice keyboard box. I think it’s a great idea, although I am I bit of a pi fanboy.
With a pi you can choose the Linux operating system you fancy; the standard one is fine. You get Scratch, Python and more for programming, Office compatible stuff for work and a few games. There are repositories of software online where you can easily install loads of free stuff.
Frankly I think they’re great, and they will be a lot less annoying than an underpowered Windows 10 laptop.
There are also good books available to help you to learn Scratch coding, which is great for the kids.
Yep love it, I run retropi on mine
I wish something as powerful for such a small price had been around when I was in school. You should encourage both your kids to learn to be comfortable with a computer. Learning to program was the best thing I ever did. It has given me a comfortable life doing something I really enjoy.
i dont - litle machines with hardly any processing power, and micro 1K of memory taught certain programming tricks that helped me in over the years
i agree, i dont do that much now, i still get a thrill when i do a bit. It is so good to help develop a wider set of thinking and problem solving skills.
The Pi is a useful machine - we give them away to students on certain modules. We have worked with a few local schools to provide a structured learning programme to support kids learning to program on a Pi. We found that most kids, even if they wanted to learn to program, lacked the ability in independent learning to pick up a Pi and start to learn to program. Some can but most can’t.
It is a nice platform. Personally i think the 400 in the case etc, whilst a good choice for the desktop user, and perhaps to learn to program, i prefer the smaller non-keyboard versions as you can get to the board easier, strap it to the back of a robot, use it in so many more versatile ways. As a an xmas gift it’ll be nice, a gaming platform.
I am going to seminar given by Pete Lomas (one of the co-founders of the Pi) in late Jan
Thanks for the feedback guys, I’m very tempted by it to be honest.
So it. Coding in Scratch is just charming, it’s so elegant
I got the exact same kit, obviously didn’t read the book, but it’s got way more in it than I thought. Will keep them busy beyond xmas
Has anyone tried the BBC micro:bit? I was thinking of getting that for my kids as it looks good, but I’ve not come across anyone who’s used it.
Not heard of that, I shall have a look.
They recommended it in The Week Junior on a section they had on coding for kids a few weeks ago. I’d not heard of it before.
It’s not as neat a solution as the pi 400, but the built in sensors are nice