Tag Archives: Digital Making at Home

100 Raspberry Pi moments

Post Syndicated from Ashley Whittaker original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/100-raspberry-pi-moments/

The official Raspberry Pi magazine turned 100 this month! To celebrate, the greatest Raspberry Pi moments, achievements, and events that The MagPi magazine has ever featured came back for a special 100th issue.

100 Raspberry Pi Moments is a cracking bumper feature (starting on page 32 of issue 100, if you’d like to read the whole thing) highlighting some influential projects and educational achievements, as well as how our tiny computers have influenced pop culture. And since ’tis the season, we thought we’d share the How Raspberry Pi made a difference section to bring some extra cheer to your festive season.

Projects for good

The Raspberry Pi Foundation was originally launched to get more UK students into computing. Not only did it succeed at that, but the hardware and the Foundation have also managed to help people in other ways and all over the world. Here are just a few examples!

Computers for good

The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides free learning resources for everyone; however, not everyone has access to a computer to learn at home. Thanks to funding from the Bloomfield Trust and in collaboration with UK Youth and local charities, the Foundation has been able to supply hundreds of Raspberry Pi Desktop Kits to young people most in need. The computers have allowed these children, who wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, to learn from home and stay connected to their schools during lockdown. The Foundation’s work to distribute Raspberry Pi computers to young people in need is ongoing.

Elsewhere, a need for more medical equipment around the world resulted in many proposals and projects being considered for cheap, easy-to produce machines. Some included Raspberry Pi Zero, with 40,000 of these sold for ventilator designs.

The Foundation’s Digital Making at Home live streams bring coding fun to young people at home every week

Offline learning

While there’s no global project or standard to say what an offline internet should contain, some educational projects have tried to condense down enough online content for specific people and load it all onto a Raspberry Pi. RACHEL-Pi is one such solution. The RACHEL-PI kit acts as a server, hosting a variety of different educational materials for all kinds of subjects, as well as an offline version of Wikipedia with 6000 articles. There’s even medical info for helping others, math lessons from Khan Acadamy, and much more.

The RACHEL sites are available in English, French, and Spanish

17,000 ft is another great project, which brings computing to schools high up in the Himalayas through a similar method in an attempt to help children stay in their local communities.

Young learners in red jackets and baseball caps using tablets to learn in a Himalayan school
Ladakh is a desert-like region up a mountain that can easily shut down during the winter

Education in other countries

The free coding resources available on our projects site are great, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation works to make them accessible to people whose first language isn’t English: we have a dedicated translation team and, thanks to volunteers around the world, provide our free resources translated into up to 32 other languages. From French and Welsh to Korean and Arabic, there’s a ton of projects that learners from all over the world can access in their first language.

And through the Code Club and CoderDojo programmes, the Foundation supports volunteers around the world to run free coding clubs for young people.

A Raspberry Pi lab in Kuma Adamé, Togo that Dominique Laloux helped create and update
A Raspberry Pi lab in Kuma Adamé, Togo, that Dominique Laloux helped create and update

That’s not all: several charitable groups have set up Raspberry Pi classrooms to bring computing education to poorer parts of the world. People in African countries and parts of rural India have benefited from these programmes, and work is being done to widen access to ever more people and places.

Pocket FM

The Pocket FM is far smaller than traditional transmitters, and therefore easy to move into the country and set up

The HAM radio community loves Raspberry Pi for amateur radio projects; however, sometimes people need radio for more urgent purposes. In 2016, German group Media in Cooperation and Transition created the Pocket FM 96 , micro radio transmitters with 4–6km range. These radios allowed Syrians in the middle of a civil war to connect to free media on Syrnet for more reliable news.

There are a number of independent radio stations that transmit through Pocket FM
There are a number of independent radio stations that transmit through Pocket FM

Raspberry Pi powered these transmitters, chosen because of how easy it is to upgrade and add components to. Each transmitter is powered by solar power, and Syrnet is still transmitting through them as the war continues into its tenth year.

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Code a GUI live with Digital Making at Home

Post Syndicated from Kevin Johnson original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/code-a-gui-live-with-digital-making-at-home/

This week, we’re introducing young people around the world to coding GUIs, or graphical user interfaces. Let them tune in this Wednesday at 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST for a fun live stream code-along session with Christina and special guest Martin! They’ll learn about GUIs, can ask us questions, and get to code a painting app.

I want my kids to tune in live!

For beginner coders, we have our Thursday live stream at 3.30pm PDT / 5.30pm CDT / 6.30pm EDT, thanks to support from Infosys Foundation USA! Christina will share more fun Scratch coding for beginners.

Now that school is back in session for many young people, we’ve wrapped up our weekly code-along videos. You and your children can continue coding with us during the live stream, whether you join us live or watch the recorded session on-demand. Thanks to everyone who watched our more than 90 videos and 45 hours of digital making content these past month!

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Coding for concentration with Digital Making at Home

Post Syndicated from Kevin Johnson original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/coding-for-concentration-with-digital-making-at-home/

September is wellness month at Digital Making at Home. Your young makers can code along with our educators every week to create projects that focus on their well-being. This week’s brand-new projects are all about helping young people concentrate better.

I want my kids to start coding now

Through Digital Making at Home, we invite parents and kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new projects, videos, and live streams every week.

This week’s live stream will take place on Wednesday at 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST at rpf.io/home. Let your kids join in so they can progress to the next stage of learning to code with Scratch!

If you’re in the USA, your young people can join Christina on Thursday at 3.30pm PDT / 5.30pm CDT / 6.30pm EDT for an additional US-time live stream! Christina will show newcomers how to begin coding Scratch projects. Thanks to our partners Infosys Foundation USA for making this new live stream possible.

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Explore well-being in September with Digital Making at Home

Post Syndicated from original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/explore-well-being-in-september-with-digital-making-at-home/

September is wellness month at Digital Making at Home. Your young makers can code along with our educators every week to create projects which focus on their well-being. This week’s brand new projects are all about embracing the things that make you feel calm. Go check them out!

Through Digital Making at Home, we invite parents and kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new projects, videos, and live streams every week.

This week’s live stream will take place on Wednesday at 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST at rpf.io/home. Let your kids join in so they can progress to the next stage of learning to code with Scratch!

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Coding for kids and parents with Digital Making at Home

Post Syndicated from original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/coding-for-kids-and-parents-with-digital-making-at-home/

Through Digital Making at Home, we invite your and your kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new videos every week.

Since March, we’ve created over 20 weeks’ worth of themed code-along videos for families to have fun with and learn at home. Here are some of our favourite themes — get coding with us today!

A mother and child coding at home

If you’ve never coded before…

Follow along with our code-along video released this week and make a digital stress ball with us. In the video, we’ve got 6-year-old Noah trying out coding for the first time!

Code fun video games

Creating your own video games is a super fun, creative way to start coding and learn what it’s all about.

Check out our code-along videos and projects where we show you:

A joystick on a desktop

Build something cool with your Raspberry Pi

If you have a Raspberry Pi computer at home, then get it ready! We’ve got make-along videos showing you:

Top down look of a simple Raspberry Pi robot buggy

Become a digital artist

Digital making isn’t all about video games and robots! You can use it to create truly artistic projects as well. So come and explore with us as we show you:

Lots more for you to discover

You’ll find many more code-along videos and projects on the rpf.io/home page. Where do you want your digital making journey to take you?

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Beginners’ coding for kids with Digital Making at Home

Post Syndicated from Kevin Johnson original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/beginners-coding-for-kids-with-digital-making-at-home/

Have your kids never coded before? Then out Digital Making at Home video this week is perfect for you to get them started.

A girl doing digital making on a tablet

In our free code-along video this week, six-year-old Noah codes his first Scratch project guided by Marc from our team. The project is a digital stress ball, because our theme for September is wellness and looking after ourselves.

Follow our beginners’ code-along video now!

Through Digital Making at Home, we invite parents and kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new videos and live stream every week.

Our live stream will take place on Wednesday 5.30pm BST / 12.30pm EDT / 10.00pm IST at rpf.io/home. Let your kids join in so they can progress to the next stage of learning to code with Scratch!

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Try web development with Digital Making at Home

Post Syndicated from Kevin Johnson original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/web-development-digital-making-at-home/

Join us for Digital Making at Home: this week, young people can find out how to create web pages with us! Through Digital Making at Home, we invite kids all over the world to code and make along with us and our new videos every week.

So get ready to contribute to the World Wide Web:

Let’s create web pages this week! Watch our video to get coding now.

And tune in on Wednesday 2pm BST / 9am EDT / 7.30pm IST at rpf.io/home to code along with our live stream session and ask us all your question about the World Wide Web, the internet, and web development.

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