Raspberry Pi

The downside of computers becoming easier to use in recent years is that kids are no longer exposed to programming as they were in the early days of computing. Education has moved away from teaching kids how to program and towards teaching them how to use applications such as Excel. The result is that the UK isn’t providing the IT industry with the skills it desperately needs, which is where the Raspberry Pi Foundation steps in. The goal of this foundation, which was set up by Eben Upton and colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s computer laboratory, was to create a low-cost computer that would boot into a programming environment. The Raspberry Pi was born, and is now available for just £32 including VAT. Based around a mobile processor, this cheap computer boots from an SD card into a Linux operating system that kids (and anyone, really) can use to learn how to program.