What’s the best way to start using the Raspberry Pi?
Off the shelf vs Kano vs Pi-Top
Over the last year or so, I’ve been trying really hard to get my sisters into computing, and I’ve been exploring using the RPi to do it, as it definitely is the easiest (and most supported) way to get to know hardware, it’s Linux-based (woo open source!), and has a very large and supportive community.
So I tried three different ways of using the Raspberry Pi for education, and here are my experiences with each.
Using the Raspberry Pi on its own
Whilst the Raspberry Pi is built as an educational tool, I would say that for a complete, absolute beginner, it’s not one that I would start with.
Why?
- Setting up the Pi: It’s delicate and has little bits and pieces — which is great if you have a natural inclination towards building things with your hands… GPIO pins man… But what if you’re not? (More on this in the example with my sister)
- Booting up the Pi: When you first boot up the Pi, it goes into NOOBS, which is a bit confusing. And the challenge the RPi poses in this stage can either be really fun or incredibly depressing, depending on what your personality is like.
- Updating software and SD Card corruption: This is another hurdle and requires some knowledge of the command line to prevent, and clean up.
I bought myself the RPi with the new official touch screen when it came out, which is super awesome – I love it! I wouldn’t give it to my sister to set it up on her own though. Predominantly for the reasons stated above.
The point at which I realised this would not be an easy task for a non-coder was when I had to update the SD Card that I got preloaded with NOOBS. It didn’t load the first time I booted the Pi up because I had to update it from the command line to use the touch screen… It was a bit counter-productive, but I managed to sort it out in about 20 minutes. This was also my first experience with the Raspberry Pi on its own and the first time reading through the documentation.
I’m not sure my 15 year old sister would have the patience to sit down and Google this stuff, or have the foreknowledge to figure out whether or not the guide or a Stack Overflow answer is a good one. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t (like most beginners) really know what Stack Overflow is.
I also managed to corrupt my SD card twice on my own because it was like 2am and I was really tired — Would an absolute beginner think about using the terminal to create a backup?
You might argue that this is all part of the learning process, but all this does is weed out the ones who haven’t learnt the patience to persevere. #ExplainItLikeIm5
The RPi is definitely a great teaching tool, but I would argue is more of a low cost computing toy for hobbyists than a gateway into computing that a beginner can pick up and get on with on their own.
Sometimes, we get so used to what we know that we forget what it’s like to be a complete beginner.
My experience trying to teach my youngest, pre-teen sister about computing
My sister lives in my hometown, Singapore. And because she goes to an international school, the curriculum is very different from the one that I was brought up in, as I had attended a local, all-girls school.
Somehow, in spite of the fact that it was all girls, I had managed to learn how to use Adobe design tools in art class, led a robotics team for a national competition, started coding through working on my own websites, and was an incredible Maths geek — peer tutoring was one of my after school activities. You could say, in Singapore, it’s cool to be a geek.
After school activities in my sister’s school, however, aren’t as STEM-focused. STEM is not glorified the same way, and I actually think that’s more holistic than the educational environment I grew up in. My sister is brilliant at the humanities, and she does her own range of incredibly interesting activities as well. I do, however, wish they offered some sort of coding in the curriculum, or graphic design in art…
Back to the topic at hand — I do much prefer Kano for complete newbies. I tested it on my pre-teen sister who had never done any sort of coding before and she picked it up extremely quickly. Much quicker than the RPi itself. She did kind of wish she had it when she was like 8 because the OS was a bit too “young” for her. To be fair, you don’t have to use the Kano apps or the Kano keyboard, despite the fact that the set-up is definitely geared towards children. She sometimes still uses it, even when I’m not there.
I then showed her the Adventures in Raspberry Pi book and she hated it — she didn’t tell me she did, but she just didn’t use it without me — because it’s all too complex and, as she told my mom, “boring”. RPi bits are also quite delicate and she doesn’t even really like Lego unless we’re doing it together… Life eh? Luckily it was my RPi touchscreen that I lent her (which she didn’t end up touching), not a whole new RPi kit. I ended up keeping it and the book for myself a few months later… At least my savings weren’t devastated yet.
On Kano
“as simple and fun as lego”
Kano is really well designed, looks-wise and product-wise, and I have to say the hardware is really pretty sturdy — great quality, more than worth the cost.
Kano World also gives a great workaround to data corruption too, and their little step-by-step books do a great job of explaining the RPi components in simple terms. They also come with these cute stickers, in a pretty box.
There are loads of reviews out there on Kano, and most of us know Steve Wozniak backed their Kickstarter campaign — geek ❤. They remind me of Slack, the right combination of hardware, software, overall design & above all, brilliant UX. (Btw, they have an OS for Pi Zero too! :D)
Kano is not just a toy for kids, but a full-on experience unfolding as a narrative.
I’ll let the review below speak for itself.
I watched this talk too, it was awesome.
On Pi-Top
I was an early adopter for this as well. I got a TechCrunch special, where they also promised a “HAT”.
In my honest opinion, Pi-Top is pretty horrendous and over-priced. It was about USD 250 or 299… my savings were NOT happy at all.
For one, if you can see the pic closely, the plastic bit in the middle right above the hole is bending out. It’s flimsy and chunky. The keyboard sucks too. The mousepad is pretty shitty. And also, I can’t replace it with my own keyboard/mouse or it won’t be a laptop anymore.
Next, it wouldn’t start properly, so I had to restart it again, whilst worrying about corrupting the SD card. It worked the second time though.
In my personal opinion, the OS design is really not appealing at all. I had to squint to read a couple of things… And I’m supposed to have perfect eyesight.
The first thing I had to do as well, was to install a patch, which wasn’t there at the time, and only got updated a week or so after I tweeted at them with a screenshot of the fact that it was not there.
As above, before I typed in the command for the third time (I also checked to see if curl was working on the laptop, because… it would be really really weird if it wasn’t… I went to the website link, and this is what i saw…
They fixed it pretty quickly, so if you go to the site, it should be working.
I do admit, it (a RPi laptop) is a pretty ambitious undertaking, but I feel cheated. It took ages to come and was delayed several times. The Pi-Top was also more expensive than the Kano computer + its new screen / portable kit combined, not to mention flimsier.
At the end of the experience, I literally wanted to sell my Pi-Top on ebay or something — something I haven’t gotten round to. I haven’t touched it since.
Now, on the CEED Universe:
I’m resisting the urge to be too harsh… So, I’ll just ask you a question.
Imagine you’re a 15 year old girl. You may not necessarily be super feminine, I wasn’t. I was a massive tomboy and I loved football, Tae Kwon Do, Worms and GTA. My sisters — one is relative to me, super feminine, and one is in the middle. But does this game look like something you would want to play?
Would you spend time, freely, out of your own will, on this game?
I tried it, and… I wouldn’t spend another minute on it.
The colour scheme and branding doesn’t feel particularly welcoming either. Not just that, but there was a bug or something when I got past the first level and it stopped working, and navigating the game was REALLY annoying.
12 year old me would not have used this thing. Is this really, REALLY, the world’s gateway to understanding technology? What happened to “no compromise”?
The desktop might be £139, but is it worth it? pi-top seems to be trying to be a jack of all trades, but is by no means a master at any one.
My ideal educational tool
All in all, I do think Kano is the best gift to someone to learn or try computing on their own. RPis on their own are great, yet they tend to require some supervision/assistance. Books, YouTube tutorials, and all the amazing things the RPi community has and which I love, somehow, do not manage to engage those who have no interest in computing whatsoever or curiosity about a new gift.
Even the Kano hardware — the fact that it comes as a full set, is already incredibly convenient. I don’t have to go on ModMyPi and decide which Kit I want, and keep all its parts in a bag when it comes, to have everything I need.
In terms of software, it is definitely and purposefully targeted at a certain age group, but that’s not that big a hurdle, given their available apps are open-source and their community is huge (and will age/grow with the company). It might evolve as its users grow up. I like to think of it as an open-sourced OS X to its predecessor Unix, or Slack to IRC.
I love the Raspberry Pi, and I use mine a lot. But for someone else? My ideal educational tool would be the Kano hardware with an OS that is slightly more flexible in terms of targeted user group. But obviously, as most startups do — they’ve started in a niche.
That doesn’t stop you or me from customising or making a variation of it.
