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Why the Raspberry Pi Zero Isn't a Practical Tool For Teaching Students (hackaday.com)
An anonymous reader writes: This article criticizes the Raspberry PI Foundation's new computer the Zero. It points out that the Foundation says the purpose of the new Pi is to reach students but with all the needed equipment and experience it is ill suited for students. From the Hackaday story: "For development you need to set up the Zero with a power supply, mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, the USB OTG cable, USB hub, a keyboard, and possibly a mouse. After some hours of work you’re ready to try the software in your device. The cables are all disconnected and the board connected to the device. Tests are run. You pull the Zero out and plug everything back together for further software work. That’s going to get old really fast so you get a second Zero so one can stay in the device. Now all you need to do is swap the SD card. If you’re going to do that, you don’t need a second Zero since you can use a Pi 2 and get the advantages of its higher speed in development. Alternatively, you can use the USB OTG with a WiFi dongle, copy files to the Zero’s SD, and restart or reboot the device. Over WiFi you can also use SSH or a remote console to monitor the device’s activities. How long did it take you to figure out all the cable connections in the second paragraph above? Do you think a student without a hacker friend will understand that? Remember, the goal is to reach students who don’t know computers."
How long did it take you to figure out all the cable connections in the second paragraph above?
There was only one paragraph. Thank you, samzenpus. I was worried that the old failure machine was itself not doing well, due to the collection of surprisingly coherent and minimally-biased articles that have been on the front page lately.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I was thinking that the power supply, mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, the USB OTG cable, USB hub, keyboard, and mouse are going to cost more than the $5 Raspberry PI Zero computer you are hooking it to.
tl:dr - "thinkin's too hard"
Stop pretending everything is about "reaching students" or "education" or "democratization" or "encouraging people to get into STEM".
We are SURROUNDED BY AN OCEAN of electronics, computers have been in the home for decades, everyone has a phone these days.
Just say you have a hobby. Jesus fuck already.
Wasn't it about the price? $5 is A LOT LESS then $35 for me. Wish I could buy somewhere (with reasonable international shipping).
I've never understood the hype of the Raspberry Pi because the Pi is only a computer, not a full computer system. After you buy all the other components you need and piece them all together, you've spent way over $25! If you want a cheap, easy to learn computer system, make it a ZX80-type system with everything included but a monitor, then provide a TV connection. It would suck on an old low-definition TV, but on a typical TV these days it could look great.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
If I want to learn programming, I'll install Eclipse / Visual Studio / gcc / whatever.
If I want to start off learning about embedded hardware, I'm better off programming a PIC or getting an Arduino or something than what is essentially a low-power but advanced modern computer lacking in peripherals.
If I want to control external robotics/meccano/lego/whatever, I need something akin to the old BBC micro user port / parallel port, not another computer.
>the Raspberry Pi Zero Isn't a Practical Tool For Teaching Students
So what? The Raspberry Pi 2B is still being sold. You can buy a kit including that and everything you need. The Zero is more of an intermediate user's computer that wants to hack around with embedded computing. The fact that one board isn't for everyone is sort of a non-story.
The value of a $5 computer is embedded project development. Now a class in tinkering can have dozens of ongoing unfinished multi day experiments and in debugged projects ongoing. No need to tear apart a rig for another class to use a more expensive and bulky raspberry pi. Your smart doorbell or pet door cat recognition system can stay wired up unfinished for weeks. You don't need high value projects to justify using the board. It's small so dozens can fit in a box. A school can afford to let students take home their projects.
One thing that bugs me about the pi is the lack of analog IO. Why does this seem to be consistently omitted. It limits the use as a sensor.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This $5 board seems to be something for current Pi users who want to have "throwaway" boards or only require the GPIO for their project.
The main selling point of these boards is the price. At this price point it becomes more viable as a core component for standalone products.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The editorial makes it sound like there is false advertising saying the RPZ is only $5. All of the models already require:
HDMI Cable
Keyboard
Mouse (if you're in the GUI)
WiFi adapter OR LAN Cable
Power Supply
USB Hub for A/A+/Zero if you need more than one peripheral or interface
Audio adapter if you want audio on non-Zero models.
The only additional equipment required for the Zero is a USB OTG adapter, versus the A+. You'll also need to solder on a header if you're using GPIO, but I doubt most students are going to do that. Audio can be soldered in as well, but anyone can tell you the onboard Audio is crap, you're better off with HDMI or a separate adapter.
Really, this was a misguided editorial. There is hardly anything different with how they're pricing and marketing the Zero versus their other models.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
...But the peripherals cost extra. So yeah. Just because people call computers and peripherals, a 'computer' does not make it so.
I realize that having to do something beyond just giving Dell all your money is jarring for school procurement people...
Slashdot's formatting protocol strips out the paragraph breaks in article submissions.
Even if you use <p> tags to set off paragraph elements?
Raspberry Pi 2 can run REAL apps with Windows 10, so you can play Halo while learning how to app apps while apping other apps! LUDDITE Linux can't play Halo! Only appy Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2 can!
Apps!
I suspect they will sell large numbers of the Pi Zero. I think this article got the angle wrong, plug the Pi Zero into protoboard and I supect you will get the idea.
The bits that are not needed for everything have been taken off.
The basic get it going table top machine is already out there, so what would they do next at the low price end?
I mean a 747 doesn't even have a gas pedal! And it's super bad on gas. Duh.
"Remember, the goal is to reach students who don’t know computers.""
Like learning to fly the Boeing 747 is a terrible way to learn how to drive a car. Why would anyone in the right mind EVER suggest the Pi as a learning computers tool?!? WTF?
.
From TFA:
Why then does the Raspberry Pi Zero exist? [Upton] also told Cnet, "We really hope this is going to get those last few people in the door and involved in computer programming."
Very good, but how well does the Zero support this goal or address their concerns?
The obvious point, directly inspired by the CEO of Google: it's cheap. Except it isn't. Adafruit is selling a Budget and a Starter Pack that cost $29.95 and $59.95, respectively.
Holy cow! $29.95 for the Budget Pack is absurdly NOT CHEAP! Just look at what you get for that exorbitant amount:
So glad the author of the TFA has exposed this blatant display of price gouging greed.
Teachers. Are we forgetting that part?
This is a decent tool for a classroom environment, where we can use school-owned cables, buy SD cards in bulk, etc., and where a teacher can guide a group of 10-20 students through basic setup and teardown, shield additions, setting up a dev environment, and maybe even some 'ssh into your partner's machine' kind of work.
So no, it's not a practical piece of hardware to throw at a kid with no support whatsoever. But if that's our education model, we have bigger problems.
everyone has a phone these days.
A user-programmable one? Flip phones aren't user-programmable, and iPhones aren't very much so either. Even a brand-new iPad Pro can't run Xcode.
It's about preserving the economies of scale of programming as a hobby. As mobile devices continue to encroach on the PC's turf for more and more applications, students are more likely to end up with access only to locked-down devices, such as game consoles, iPhones, and iPads. A cheap computer such as the Raspberry Pi is commonly touted as a workaround in comments like this and this.
Thatâ(TM)s going to get old really fast so you get a second Zero so one can stay in the device.
The good old days of floppy disks. Disk 1 contains the OS. Disk 2 contains the application. Disk 3 contains the user data. Switching disks get old really fast so you buy another floppy drive. If you have money to burn, get one of those 5.25" 20MB RLL drives.
Sounds like a load of twaddle written by someone that doesn't know the first thing they're writing about.
For development you need to set up the Zero with a power supply, mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, the USB OTG cable, USB hub, a keyboard, and possibly a mouse. After some hours of work you’re ready to try the software in your device. The cables are all disconnected and the board connected to the device. Tests are run.
If this is the best argument the "author" can come up with to make the Zero look bad, then surely the same also applies to all previous Raspberry Pis ?
And what "device" is he imagining students building to plug this into? Take one look at the Pi Foundations website, you can see exactly the type of students (and projects) they're aiming at , blinking LEDs and reading simple sensors.
This diatribe at best sounds like some closed minded twat posting a lengthy brainfart "This device isn't useful for me, therefore it isn't useful for anyone".
At worst, I wonder how much the $9 CHIP people paid for it ?
I think the idea is to pick up a cheap keyboard and mouse at the local Goodwill store. It already has HDMI out to work with your existing HDTV.
LUDDITE Linux can't play Halo!
Nor can Windows 10 play Gran Turismo 7. Only Orbis OS on PlayStation 4 can, and Orbis OS is based on FreeBSD.
Cry me a damn river, Rud. If you don't want a pi zero, don't buy one. I'm betting most people already have all the extra crap laying around they'd need. I know I do.
What niche does it serve? People who want a $5 pi and have the stuff necessary.
And guess what, the $35 pi won't work without stuff like a hdmi cable, power supply, and sd card.
And corrupted SD cards being the Achilles heel for a device that's about software development? Maybe a software developer could write a shutdown script? Perhaps you could add a battery and sensor to the gpio and detect power loss for a clean shutdown? It's a DEVELOPMENT product.
GOOD GRIEF.
Reading it. Yep, thinking of all the junk we had to hook up for the 80s micros that I cut my teeth on. Sounding familiar so far. Let's see, let's install the sideways RAM, refresh the EPROM, hook up to one of the myriad different I/O ports, learn how to open channels to devices on serial ports over BASIC...
Not suitable for learning? Sounds better for learning.
I get that all the listed equipment is needed to run the Pi Zero, but it doesn't *all* need to be connected and disconnected every time. If the adapters are left attached to the HDMI cable and USB hub, and the kb/mouse are plugged into the hub, you'd only need to plug/unplug the USB OTG and mini-HDMI to switch between development and testing. Or did I miss something?
From the RPi foundation's mission statement:
"But we felt that we could try to do something about the situation where computers had become so expensive and arcane that programming experimentation on them had to be forbidden by parents; and to find a platform that, like those old home computers, could boot into a programming environment. "
The point of the thing is to be a cheap platform for learning programming and principles of Computer Science. They go on to say that the multimedia capabilities were added to make it interesting to kids that weren't interested in a purely programming oriented device. I have to think the GPIO capability is basically for the same reason, although they don't mention it explicitly. I believe the charter was expanded at some point to include third-world students.
*ALL* the RPis require a power supply, SD card, cables, mouse, keyboard, etc. The only thing the Zero really lacks compared to (some of) the other versions is Ethernet and multiple USB ports. AND ITS $5.
The fact that the Pis have become attractive to hackers doesn't make your needs paramount. If you're using them for embedded system development and it's such a pain in the ass to move cables around, you have enough money- if you don't already have most of the crap in your closet- to buy two complete setups. (I do, with 2-3 each of the various versions of Pi). It's not that expensive.
RPis absolutely fulfill their intended purpose, even if the single core models are a little pokey. While pushing things beyond their envelope is admirable and What We Do, you can't really complain if things get a little sketchy outside of expected operational modes.
Pi0 not developed for intro to computing, therefore using it as such will be less than ideal. Film at 11.
This kind of thing may actually make it all the better for a teaching tool. I think one of the primary reasons people bounce off the surface of a complex subject area is when you are lied to up front in a teaching environment that something is simple, then are hit with an exponential increase in complexity and general pain-in-the-ass-ness when you try to do it on your own from scratch. Learning how hard and tedious it can be to make something from scratch is part of the learning process, and helps harden you against despair when you are doing it for real and it's not all fun in Imagineering land.
This, for example, is the reason I bounced off of chemistry - first it's all nice rules and predictable properties of elements and how they bond, then they hit you with all the crazy shit and you realize you will need to memorize a tome of special cases and branching conditionals to have anything more than trivial knowledge on the subject. Or like learning a foreign language, when in the second year they start telling you how there are almost fewer verbs that conjugate nicely than there are silly ones that don't (or noun genders - I will never understand why that is a thing).
Now, I think dealing with cabling hell is not necessarily the best way to imbue this particular lesson, but the lesson is nonetheless a valuable one for anybody starting out in an advanced hobby/profession. I've lost count of the number of interns we have had go all wobbly when they come in with some decent coding skills but then get exposed to Maven, CI pipelines, SCM, coding standards, architectural guidelines, etc. and they realize that they can do literally nothing the way they are accustomed to doing in their learning vacuum.
Making stuff is hard, or else everybody would do it.
I'll never forget the class where the teacher handed out a PIC to every student, told them to buy a breadboard, some wires, resistors capacitors, a crystal and a power supply.
I learnt that even though the development boards we'd been using previously cost hundreds of dollars and were far more powerful than we needed them to be, there were still ways you could build your own micro-controller system on the cheap.
I use them to show bare metal (no OS) programming. It's very difficult to demo on a modern x86 based system with no OS. However, if you can get them to squint and ignore the linker script setup, demonstrating on a pi is amazing. I'm actually very surprised there are no educational books for this topic using the pi. The AVR used to be my go-to, but it uses registers for I/O instead of memory mapped I/O.
As a general computing platform for teaching its almost useless. When's the last time you met someone that has a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and network connection, and the only thing they were missing was a computer?
The Raspberry Pi is not very good for teaching general programming. A "real" computer is better for that.
Not necessarily. An SD card image with Linux (ex Raspbian) can be downloaded and burned using the computer. There are ample instructions getting a beginner from download to a remote console running on the Pi. A *nix console is a great place to learn programming. From the absolutely critical fundamentals like data structures to more advanced topics such as threading and interprocess communications. Yeah, no GUI but to be honest if you don't understand the critical fundamentals you aren't that useful as a programmer.
So yes, a $5 Pi with a $10 USB-wifi adapter is a fine environment to learn programming. Especially for those interested in *nix. The power supply and cable can possibly be from an old phone, or your current phone if you don't need to charge at the moment.
Oh teh noes, you need some support connectors that's gunna cost U all teh moniez !1!11!1one!1!uno!1!oneone!1!
The Standard RasPi boards weren't much better once you got through all the extra connectors and support hardware you needed to really get them running. Hell when I got my first SBC I needed a USB cable, an HDMI-DVI converter, MicroSD cards, WiFi adapter, Powered external USB hub. Not going to count the keyboard and the mouse because I already had those. Much like I wouldn't count my LCDs tho you would probably need one of those too if you didn't already have one..... I mean what is up with this new wave of nitpicking every little thing?
I don't see buying an SBC to be any different than buying a motherboard and you need all kinds of extra bits and bobs to get those running too.
Also suggesting that some kid isn't going to be able to change around, what, two polarized connectors (I guess three if you count power) and an MicroSD card is pretty damn insulting. That is not going to take the kid having some hacker friend. The only thing that might be a potential issue is that the power in and the USB use the same style of connector and I suspect the USB won't take kindly to someone dumping power into it.
As for connecting and reconnecting the PiZero to test it in your project... You know what I did when I started getting tired of continually disconnecting and re-connecting my Pi? I left a WiFi dongle plugged into it and learned to SSH into the thing. Suddenly you are down to what a PiZero the OTG connector and a WiFi adapter. I guess if you really want to get nitpicky you could add in the power supply and MicroSD card. /internet rant
For development you need to set up the Zero with a power supply, mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, the USB OTG cable, USB hub, a keyboard, and possibly a mouse.
Yes? And? Did you think anyone was going to buy a Raspberry Pi Zero thinking they could plug their kettle lead and PS2 keyboard into it?
But let's go through the list anyway:
a power supply
I've got dozens of the bloody things. Who hasn't these days?
mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable
Or just a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable.
USB hub, a keyboard, and possibly a mouse.
Well, if it's only possibly a mouse, then you might not need the USB hub at all, eh?
And you can get micro-USB-to-USB-A hubs.
Alternatively, you can use the USB OTG with a WiFi dongle, copy files to the Zero’s SD, and restart or reboot the device. Over WiFi you can also use SSH or a remote console to monitor the device’s activities.
Well that sounds very easy. Why didn't you just say that in the first place?
How long did it take you to figure out all the cable connections in the second paragraph above?
Uh, about 0.68 seconds. Why? Was it supposed to be complicated?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You have all the mixing and matching and making sure you measure the exact amount. There's the scales you have to purchase and measuring spoons, beakers and heating tools. You'll have to plumb the area with natural gas and make sure there are valves and safety equipment. How long did it take you to figure out all the mixtures out? Do you think a student without a chemistry friend will understand that? Remember, the goal is to reach students who don’t know chemistry."
There are these things called Educators who's job it is to guide the students through the processes of learning including the tools and how to use them.
It's not a desktop PC. Most rPi projects don't require any of those things. If you're not familiar with the concept, think of the computer that runs your car - it (or they) controls fuel / air mixture, transmission gearing, etc. You'll notice it has no monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. (The infotainment one may have a display.)
A typical application might be an autopilot in a model airplane. You attach a digital gyroscope and compass, maybe a tiny GPS module. You don't have a monitor and keyboard on your model plane. Another example would be a controller for a home security system. It reads the door sensors and triggers the siren if necessary. The UI is a keyfob or numbered keypad - there is no mouse, monitor, USB, etc. You stick the SD card into your desktop or laptop to program it, or if you for some reason don't have a computer, you can use one keyboard for all of your projects, with many different rPi Zero or similar boards.
I'm amazed at the absolute ignorance of the possibilities that abound with a 5 dollar computer board. The only limit is your creativity. Sure it's only a starting point but it's cheap and you only need to buy the stuff that your project requires. If you need all the crap that's on the 35 dollar pi then hell, buy that one. This a tool for teaching how to use computers for building things, not how to use excel and powerpoint.
These click bait articles are hilarious. All you need is a power supply, wifi dongle and ssh.
If you want to drive around in town get a car. Don't buy a lawnmower and extend it into a car-like thing. The thing you build would not be pretty, practical and probably not even, in the end, very cheap. If you want to learn how to build a car - maybe - get a lawnmower...
58 years on, Norwich City Hall finally gets a new computer:
Apparently, the Zero is enough for serious government business. Lets not renew that IT-contract city halls, shall we?
I've lost count of the number of interns we have had go all wobbly when they come in with some decent coding skills but then get exposed to Maven, CI pipelines, SCM, coding standards, architectural guidelines, etc.
Maybe those things are just shit and are an unnecessary impediment to doing your job. I've been working as a software developer for over 20 years, and except for coding standards and SCM, which are different at every job anyway (and every job will tell you they are following industry-wide best practice), I haven't had to deal with any of those things.
"For development you need to set up the Zero with a power supply, mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, the USB OTG cable, USB hub, a keyboard, and possibly a mouse. After some hours of work you’re ready to try the software in your device."
Oh yeah, it's a computer!
Seriously, if anyone thinks that plugging stuff in is a barrier to coding, they're idiots... what do they want, a $5 laptop? This kind of sanitized approach to effort really pisses me off!
The Rasberry Pi is a basically a complete desktop computer. Even running distros without rendering of a graphical desktop, it has all the internal complexity of Linux. Not a good place to start - Linux is immensely complicated and there are many ways to go wrong if you're just starting out. So you get a desktop PC with the muscle behind a decent desktop PC, like a fast processor, a bunch of ram, and a nice set of I/O ports. Not good if you have access to something better.
Arduinos, on the other hand, are basically a bare chip. The arduino IDE is extremely minimalistic. Any instructions you type in, that's what it's gonna do. The arduino libraries are hidden - you don't have to include anything, you can just type a command in C you googled for and it calls the relevant library. You only have to tell it the target chip, and it, for the most part, can run code you wrote on a different type of arduino without you doing anything but changing the target.
Biggest downside of the Raspberry Pi zero in my opinion is that you can get a C.H.I.P. board instead at $9 that includes 4GB onboard storage in addition to an SD card slot, open hardware and a onboard battery charger.
Yes. . . It's supposed to teach kids to understand computers, not make it unnecessary for them to understand computers.
Jeezis F hell, who are you people who write up this shit? I think if plugging in USB/HDMI cables and writing a completely pre-figured, tested OS distro to an SD card is a difficult line of steps, then find a new F hobby and get off the rest of our lawns. What the Raspberry Pi Foundation has dropped in your lap is about THE SIMPLEST FORM OF ABSTRACTED HIGH LEVEL EMBEDDED DEVELOPMENT YOU WILL EVER GET TO WORK WITH. Period.
I'd honestly hate to see the thought of you doing FPGA programming over a JTAG interface. Heck, I bet an Arduino anything is probably too much for you.
You damn millennial babies make me want to gouge my eyes out sometimes. Go turn your Playstation/XBox back on.
I think the article is spot on. I like the RPi, and have several, but by the time you buy all the supporting equipment, it's no longer the bargain it sounds like. The article shows clearly to all that the main CPU is no longer the expensive component of a total working system like it was for the PC era.
Many complaints about the article compare it to the effort computing took back in the TRS-80 dayz. While it may be comparable in difficulty to what we had back then, it misses the point that this is supposed to be an entry system for poor, casual users and unsophisticated beginners, not hard-core nerds like me and apparently many of the complainants.
If the designers were more savvy, they would have put a full-size male HDMI plug on the end and a female USB A on the other, with a minimal clamshell cover it all. Think Chromecast or Intel Compute Stick form factor.
If the device can work on back-fed power from a connected powered hub like the original RPi, that's even better as it eliminates another power supply and cable. Vendors could even advertise as RPi power compatible! Once you've found a suitable powered hub, all you'd need is that and a keyboard/mouse. And the display, of course.. and the MicroSD card.. and a USB WiFi or Ethernet device if you want to get online..
I really wish they would provide serial console access via the micro-B "power" port, too. I'd love to have a working system that I can power and talk to from my laptop. In fact, I'd love to have a whole server farm of them!
Yes, with all that, you'd overshoot the $5 price point, but the total cost would still be lower without the need for the HDMI and OTG paraphernalia... those cost more than the CPU itself now. If you could walk into a library with a small handful (RPi, microSD, and a powered hub) worth less than $20, power up the hub, plug it into their monitor/KB/mouse, and get your own login prompt, imagined the possibilities!
C'mon, kids! Sell your $150 sneakers, buy some $90 ones instead, get three RPi sets with your cash, and rope two of your nerdy friends into playing with you.
Um, no. 'The Job' is what I am hiring you to do. These are the things required to do that job, they are not matters of personal preference and working style. Without these things, there is no other alternate route to arrive at a satisfactory outcome for 'The Job', Bully for you for getting away with that attitude for so long, but you may want to either reconsider it or hold on to your current job for as long as you can, because that 'this is how I do things now stay out of my way' shit does not fly in a real, large-scale enterprise software delivery ecosystem. Particularly when the little turds made by guys like you who sidestep QA and standards to 'do your job' result in the melting of a high voltage transmission line somewhere in Saudi Arabia when they float to the surface, all because you couldn't be bothered to participate in the processes by which we ensure consistency and quality among the 100s of software components that make up the platform we deliver. Oh, but you're a real rockstar who goes his own way though, so that's cool - what's a few million dollars, when we might risk cramping your style?
OK, so you need to plug in "a power supply, mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, HDMI cable, the USB OTG cable, USB hub, a keyboard, and possibly a mouse". So that's 5 minutes of your day gone - hardly onerous. Also hardly a disaster to have to spend another $5 for a second board if all that plugging stuff in is "too hard" for some reason. Or you could just buy a different model if you don't need the super-small form factor and can compromise on the ultra-low price.
Why is this news?
Apparently every person EVER is a fucking genius computer hacker, according to the author of this article.
Apparently connecting such "hacker" items as a usb keyboard, mouse, and hub requires a mother fucking computer genius.
Clearly I've been underestimating all of those co-workers (hackers) who manage to plug in their OWN mother fucking usb flash drives into a usb port!
--
So fucking what If the board is $5 and needs some accessories. Not everyone needs all of those accessories in every situation.
Clearly, the author has a hate-on for the raspberry pi, and isn't afraid to show it.
Also, who the fuck could possibly complain about a $5 computer? Someones nose is out of joint.
And this is why I mainly read soylentnews.org.
Figuring out how to make all of those connections, swap SD cards, etc -- that all sounds very educational to me. Not every computing device has to be as simple to use as an iPad. Let the tots learn to try things and make mistakes, and feel rewarded by something as simple as a flashing LED or "hello world" showing up on a connected screen after hours of figuratively banging their heads into a wall.
Stupid then, stupid now. How about trotting out the "LOLZ mah cellphonez iz smarters than that raspberrry pie!" chestnut as well?
I teach a computer architecture class to 20 college students using basic electronics breadboards, some passives, CMOS ICs, Arduinos ($20) and BeagleBone Black ($45). They go from knowing nothing about Ohms Law to using some borrowed oscilloscopes, making FSM in hardware, and writing C/C++ and native ARM-8 assembly code. No emulation! Bring any laptop, we use BBB with Ethernet over USB. They are ready for a compilers class afterwards.
Haters gonna hate....
I don't see why people are criticizing the Pi Zero so much, I can only assume they lack imagination. If you need to buy the extra peripherals then maybe a full size Pi is a better choice, but that doesn't mean there's not a valid use for the Pi Zero.
For example:
- Training labs where the the peripherals can be re-used, but if someone fries a board it's only a $5 replacement instead of $35.
- Portable/mobile projects where USB WiFi is sufficient.
- Standalone, embedded projects that require a little more grunt than an Arduino - eg image recognition using a USB webcam.
The fact that the Pi Zero exists only helps the community, and having a little extra choice is a great thing. I think it's freaking awesome.
He says the Raspberry PI isn't suitable for education because it requires effort to configure and students would lose interest and he doesn't like the Raspberry Pi Foundation ..
In fact, Android has AIDE, an app for apping other apps. I was wondering more for students whose parents have bought heavily into the iOS ecosystem.
Uh, about 0.68 seconds. Why? Was it supposed to be complicated?
For an android, that is nearly an eternity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You can get perfectly good PC setups second hand for under $100. In form of a desktop or laptop.
There are also many miniature computers that sell for under $50 in dongle or stick formats.
What we might have considered programming in the old days is considered application use these days, such as writing formulas in a spreadsheet.
Programming as a hobby, is best done on an i or android device, so that the app can be made av available and even make some money.
Programminbg on pi seems about as useful and interesting for today's kids as as the assembler programming and EEPROM burning I had to do back in engineering school.
That was 95% menial work,
If I wanted to set up a kid for programming (mine are too young), I'd get them an old laptop to play with.
What is this garbage talk about locked down android or iphone environments? You can get simple development environments for these straight from their app shops, and start writing apps. If they make something really cool to share with friends, that would be the platform. Do the same on a pi, and it will remain on that same device until next generation finds the contraption in the attic.
Agree 110% that PI is a hobby thing. Great if its your cup of tea. It might even be the cup of tea for certain ultra nerd kids.
But to sell it as an educational programming environment, is just silly, and will for the most part only leave bad memories instead of generating future software engineers.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
However, I'm leaning towards using the Beaglebone Black rather than the Pi Zero or even the standard Pi, on the following grounds:
All in all, the BBB looks to have much lower barriers to entry, despite the higher cost of the units - and I don't think my usage scenario is that unique.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I'll never forget the class where the teacher handed out a PIC [..] you could build your own micro-controller system on the cheap.
How did you flash your programs onto the PICs? That was a big hurdle for micro controller development when I was a penny-less student.
The first computer my dad got was a 286 which didn't work but we got it upgraded to a 386! It didn't come with a hard drive so guess what? I learned really quick about memory and how to load floppies and run c prompt commands to play my games. Most of the time after that if a new game came out you had to buy new hardware. I still remember fretting and trying to figure out how to get a TSR driver out of the memory so my game could fit in it. When I learned about microprocessors in college, I was the last class to wirewrap an 8088 together. I wasn't that good at it and some of the connections broke, so some times when I added chips I ended up rewiring hundreds of connections. My point is 1) If you only have to connect some cables, life isn't that bad. 2) Sometimes waiting is good, You have a lot of thinking time when you have to wait. 3) Even if a project is difficult, as long as its do-able I think it helps a lot. There are plenty of real world projects that take a tremendous amount of time, effort and patience before you have the payoff and learning those lessons as a kid will only help prepare you for the future.
I haven't seen any children struggling with plugging cables into the only places they can possibly fit. Maybe you should go back to the wooden blocks, with geometric hole shapes in then, and learn how this works, along with the toddlers.
I am teaching UK school kids to program, and I will be adding Pi0 to the toolkit for the things its great for (wearables, robotics and other mobile or small things), I will still use the other Pi’s for other things but what this really gives me is 1 platform from which my students can build out from in multiple ways. We only have 2 years to teach the Computing GCSE, so we need to pick technologies that can do everything that might come up in the controlled assessment, and also allow for a wide range of real world scenarios to keep it interesting. And that is what is unique about Raspberry Pi, my students can write desktop, CLI or web based software, simple physical computing and embedded concepts all in one ecosystem. I don’t have to teach the kids or other teachers lots of ways of working. But if I can I expose the kids to more than one language and 1 form factor I would want to. So using RPi lets me use Javascript for some projects and Python for others and even FreeRTOS & C. Which means I can diversify when the students are ready without being forced to be a limiting technology. Pi is not perfect, the SD issues alone drive me mad but they were designed to make lots of things accessible but not so easy that you don’t learn. So if you are developing something important (for you) and the SD corrupts you quickly want to backup or git things. From inside a UK School, I have to say the Pi0 looks like an excellent addition to my ability to get kids learning and making technologies for themselves, which is the point of my job and the Pi Foundation. And I'm very grateful for their and the RPi communities help.
raspberry pi zero needs a raspchinese companion.
= daughter card that you plug directly in pi zero and that provides fullsize hdmi + full size usb hub + RJ45 + wifi / bluetooth
for 15$
A typical application might be an autopilot in a model airplane. You attach a digital gyroscope and compass, maybe a tiny GPS module.
And just to ram this point home, the gyroscope/compass is going to communicate via I2C and the GPS via serial, uBlox NEO-7M for example will be perfectly happy with the Pi's 3.3 volt signals. So you'll just need to solder to six pins on Pi to connect this hardware, and you won't go anywhere near the USB ports. If your ESC[s] have linear BEC and put out enough power to drive Pi and all your servos, you won't even need a buck converter. My plane has 3A BEC, but it's switching and it's too noisy for this purpose. My quad has 4x2A BEC, and it's linear! I have an absolute boatload of 5V power available there. It has two 5V power rails, 2A for the radio, RX, GPS, etc and 6A separate and unused by the system which is available for accessories like FPV.
Another example would be a controller for a home security system. It reads the door sensors and triggers the siren if necessary. The UI is a keyfob or numbered keypad - there is no mouse, monitor, USB, etc.
To be fair, you might also choose to use a touch panel. If you didn't want to use the display which is just "for" the Pi, then you could still use a HDMI display with a USB touch screen. You wouldn't need a hub, just an OTG cable or to solder a micro USB connector on to the cable provided with the device, which you might well want to shorten for this purpose anyhow. And you would need a HDMI cable of some sort no matter what you were connecting it to, although it might well come with one you can't use if you're connecting to the Pi.
You stick the SD card into your desktop or laptop to program it, or if you for some reason don't have a computer, you can use one keyboard for all of your projects, with many different rPi Zero or similar boards.
Or you hook up a wireless network dongle and make updates that way... if you're not already using the USB
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
crap when i was a student doing assembly language on 68hc11 , we did all that (and more) time and again , and as a teacher i can tell you that perfection comes from repetition , computer engineering is not only software , and i have a junior right next to me that came out with a master in computer engineering from a famous US university that has no cleu how to do a for loop in bash , IT is not an easy field , and making it easy for students only dillutes the quality of prospect IT workers
Programming as a hobby, is best done on an i or android device, so that the app can be made av available and even make some money.
Agreed for Android. I never said Android was locked down, only iOS. As of today, the peripherals to make an iOS device programmable cost $549: $499 for the Xcode license (which includes a free computer) and about $50 for a USB keyboard, USB mouse, and cable to your existing HDMI monitor. Parents and especially school districts are unlikely to be willing to spend that kind of money on a whim.
If I wanted to set up a kid for programming (mine are too young), I'd get them an old laptop to play with.
That could be fine for home, as I've seen off-lease Lenovo ThinkPad X61 computers on eBay in the neighborhood of $100 shipped. I bought one whose included copy of Windows failed to activate because it couldn't reach the volume license server, but it worked fine after I wiped it and installed Debian 8. But at the larger scale of a school district, it depends on how long its purchasing department can ensure a supply of suitable used laptops.
How on god's green earth is that hours of work? How is that more than one, -possibly- two minutes at most? And if they get that so wrong, why would I listen to the rest of it?
At least at Adafuit and Element14, everything with a Pi0 in it is gone, and I don't see any Pi0 at all at Sparkfun, DigiKey, or Mouser.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Once you sort out the "mini HDMI to full-sized HDMI" cable connector issue, you can connect the Pi0 to your HDMI TV or computer monitor. (That's one difference between the Pi and the $9 C.H.I.P. computer, which has a composite connector but needs an extra $13 board to do HDMI.)
If you're trying to connect to an LCD display, you'll need to solder on the 2x20 headers and do something appropriate with them. (I assume the Pi0 supports that? The full-sized Pi and the C.H.I.P. have boards that interface with their connectors.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I ended up spending about $100 to get all the parts I needed for my first Raspberry Pi, not counting the computer monitor which I wanted anyway. Adafruit has a Pi0 starter kit for about $30 that has most of what you'd want (which they're out of, because everybody's out of their Pi0 already), but you'd probably end up spending a few bucks more for cables, and $10-20 more for a powered USB hub anyway.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I have lots of non-powered USB hubs and USB power supplies lying around, but the Pi and Pi0 really want a powered hub. Do I really need to go out and buy one, or can I do something like plug a USB power supply into one of the slave ports on a hub (with the Pi plugged into the master port), or plug the master port into a USB power supply and plug the Pi into a slave port (with or without OTG cable)? Thanks!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
... well suited for learning how to do any sort of embedded project - for any sort of vaguely desktop role the pi 2 is much faster/better. Develop with a 2, test on a B+ (which has all the ports the 0 and A+ don't), and then when you have something finished there deploy it on the zero.
At this level you ought to customize what you put around the pi0 - if a USB cable is too expensive/big, you can solder 5V leads onto the test points on the rear side. Same with SPI and other 3.3V IO. Use the smallest used non-counterfeit Sandisk class 2 microSD's. This kinda stuff.
Also looking backwards (and upwards!) part of the post mortem about LISP machines was that there was nothing cheap (at the time) to run finished code on.
The sole point of the Pi is not to remain an uneducated fool. Part of computing is understanding the workings of the underlying hardware...plenty of developers these days don't. I also think the Zero is more aimed at being the device that is to be resident in whatever gizmo it will operate. At that point all you need is the Zero, power, and WiFi. One might wonder why then the HDMI port is populated and the GPIO is not, but it might just have been part usage research and production cost calculation. Maybe the HDMI port is cheaper to install than the GPIO pins and when stuffing the Zero into a device one might as well solder the cables right onto the pads. I am sure there was also some motivation to see if a 5$ SBC is possible. If you do not want to worry that much about cabling and moving SD cards around have a look at the CHIP. It costs 8$, has 4GB onboard storage, does not have HDMI (only composite, but HDMI and VGA are available via extension boards), and comes with WiFi on board. The last piece is what make me hesitate to buy a Zero because that would have been the "killer feature". Even the regular Pi 2 would do very well with WiFi and both would do even better with Bluetooth on board so that you do not have to wire up any keyboard or mouse but simply connect wirelessly. I am sure both teams around the Pi and CHIP discussed and continue to discuss where they want to go, what is possible, and how much reliable tech they can stuff into the form factor and price range. Just think back a few years, there was nothing like the Pi. The original Pi was groundbreaking, a 35$ SBC that can do HD video output. The Pi 2 addressed the shortcomings by doubling RAM and improving performance significantly. I have a Pi 2 with a fast SD card and it does light office work and web browsing as well as any more expensive beefed up PC. Now you get that in a decent form factor that compete in price even with low cost IoT solutions that only give you a chip and nothing else. This is just mindboggling! There is not enough credit that can be given to Upton and his team for the Pi....which they mainly design in their spare time. AFAIK they still have their day jobs.