Raspberry Pi For Kids For Dummies

Chapter 1

Find Parts for Your Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a super-cool, super-small, super-cheap microcomputer. In fact, it’s a super-cool, super-small, super-cheap microcomputer board, and it doesn’t do much on its own. Before you can do super-clever things with it, you have to add some extras to build a Pi system.

Understand the Pi

The Raspberry Pi, shown in Figure 1-1, is a tiny computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation (www.raspberrypi.org). It’s much smaller than a Mac or PC — it’s almost exactly the same size as a credit card! And it’s also much cheaper. (Prices vary, but a Pi costs around $30 in the United States and between £20 to £30 in the UK.)

Figure 1-1

The Pi only comes in Raspberry. There is no Apple Pi, Blueberry Pi, or Pumpkin Pi. A lot of people like Raspberry, so that’s fine with Pi fans.

Here are a few of the things you can do with a Pi:

• Learn how computers work
• Make and play games
• Learn how to program
• Make web pages
• Make digital music
• Build simple electronic projects
• Design awesome Minecraft worlds
• Have a ton of fun!

What you can’t do with a Pi

Although the Pi is a fully working computer, it’s not a Mac, a PC, a tablet, or a games console. ...