Raspberry Pi Demonstration

Written by Specials on May 21, 2018. Posted in General

The 4th and 5th grades were treated to a wonderful and very informative demonstration of how a Raspberry Pi works. This is not a yummy, gooey dessert. It is a very small computer that can be used to make an endless number of electronic equipment. It has a board the size of a credit card with all the connections you would find on a regular sized computer. This part gets a little boring and technical for some, but others will appreciate the specific information if they think taking on a project with this would be fun. There is a 40 pin GPIO for wiring, 4 usb ports, LAN ethernet port, audio jack, CSI camera connection, HDMI port for video monitor, micro usb for power connection, DSI display port, and a micro SD memory card slot. This Raspberry Pi will be used to light up our HiVE sign that the 5th graders made. We are using LED pixel string lights that have individually programmable bulbs along the string. This allows us to program lots of different patterns, colors, and movements with the lights. Mr. Ryan Neily, a Wood Acres dad, offered his time to come in and talk about the history and uses of the Raspberry Pi. He hooked up the lights and showed the students the code he had used to make the lights do the different movements and colors. He used a simple drag and drop program called “Scratch” so they could follow what he was doing. The students were amazed every time the lights came on and did something new! Their favorite thing to do was change the RGB color settings. This was a great demonstration and we would like to give Mr. Neily a big THANK YOU from all of us!! Look for one more post about the finished HiVE sign. It will be hooked up before the last day of school!