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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."
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.
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.