KidsLab - a podcast for parents and educators passionate about STEAM education

The Raspberry Pi with James Robinson

September 14, 2020 James Robinson
KidsLab - a podcast for parents and educators passionate about STEAM education
The Raspberry Pi with James Robinson
Show Notes

In this episode, I am talking to James Robinson about the Raspberry PI. The Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers with the common goal to promote teaching of basic computing in schools and in developing countries.

James is a senior learning manager at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. As a former teacher he is passionate about supporting teachers develop and apply effective teaching approaches for computing pedagogy and training. 

James enjoys learning new maker skills from knitting and croquet to programming and 3D design. He’s a bit of a space enthusiast as well as an adult fan of lego and has combined his passions to send Lego minifigs to near space using a Raspberry Pi.  

So what is the Raspberry PI all about. There is actually no such thing as a single Raspberry PI, The Raspberry Pi ecosystem now consists of a range of single board computers and accessories like it’s camera or sense-hat board. 

The hardware is developed by the Raspberry PI Foundation in the UK and since the first model in 2012 their products have been in high demand.

Over the years and with more powerful models of the Raspberry Pi released, many researchers and also developers for commercial projects started using the Raspberry PI. But still, the educational roots are strong and lot’s of educational software and projects are available for this small, low cost  computer.

This is the first episode that focuses exclusively on the Raspberry PI and together with James, we’re trying to give you a good overview of the Raspberry Pi itself,the educational software and content that are available. There is literally a universe of Raspberry Pi projects out there, so we’ll focus on some of our favourites and highlight these.