An idea to get kids interested in buying a unit if their school does not use them.

[liz]

You are in a maze of twisty, bendy raspberry bushes, all of which look the same.

[MDC]

Quote from liz on August 31, 2011, 23:41
You are in a maze of twisty, bendy raspberry bushes, all of which look the same.

Go forward

You meet a giant talking raspberry with sharp teeth.

What do you do next?

8O

[ukscone]

Quote from MDC on September 1, 2011, 00:12
Quote from liz on August 31, 2011, 23:41
You are in a maze of twisty, bendy raspberry bushes, all of which look the same.

Go forward

You meet a giant talking raspberry with sharp teeth.

What do you do next?



immediatly put down the pint glass and vow never to touch another drop of alcohol

[qvinlove]

That sounds like a great idea to put games on the rberri. Minecraft would do! The only reason that all school kids want iPod touches is for the games. If rberri ever is that popular, we can turn a generation of gamers into programmers!

[Canuck]

Kids won't really be interested unless they're 12+ and are very interested in computers. I don't see how packing some FPS onto it is going to solve this, even if it did most kids don't have credit cards so that in itself is a another issue. Most kids have Xbox or PS3's, or some budget gaming PC anyways. If kids wanted to program, they probably already have a much more powerful PC at  home. My prediction, this will only be popular with DIY enthusiasts.

[riffraff]

I was thinking more on the line of Beautiful Katamari Damacy - starting instead with a giant sticky Raspberry.

[lobster]

School? Where we are going schools are for fish.

Give a kid a fish
http://www.poissonrouge.com/

they are fed for today.
Teach a kid to fish; and you have fed them for a lifetime

. . . meanwhile in the future, the chronology protection agency has sent an agents consciousness into the year 2012.
The transfer as usual is hacked and dispersed across a variety of teens armed with only a brief memory of the future and a Raspberry Pi.
Using this ancient technology you must program a Cross Dimensional Communicator and await further instructions . . .

You may be an Ozmonaut


http://tmxxine.tumblr.com/Ozmonaut

[HB]

Canuck said:


Most kids have Xbox or PS3's, or some budget gaming PC anyways. If kids wanted to program, they probably already have a much more powerful PC at  home.


Not necessarily. Not all of the families with kids who are or would be interested in mucking around with computers can afford to get them. And even if they do have a family PC, the parents may not be comfortable with the idea of the kids screwing around with it in this kind of way. But this? Any parents not so destitute that their kids are literally starving could afford to get one. Kids interested in technology living with luddite parents could scrape together enough allowance to get one. And importantly, in contrast to the setup of the typical home PC, its got an operating system environment well suited to playing around with programming.

[Canuck]

HB said:


Canuck said:


Most kids have Xbox or PS3's, or some budget gaming PC anyways. If kids wanted to program, they probably already have a much more powerful PC at  home.


Not necessarily. Not all of the families with kids who are or would be interested in mucking around with computers can afford to get them. And even if they do have a family PC, the parents may not be comfortable with the idea of the kids screwing around with it in this kind of way. But this? Any parents not so destitute that their kids are literally starving could afford to get one. Kids interested in technology living with luddite parents could scrape together enough allowance to get one. And importantly, in contrast to the setup of the typical home PC, its got an operating system environment well suited to playing around with programming.


Chances are if his family can't afford a PC he has absolutely not clue about computers, or Linux in general. Since this has no documentation he would not be able to do anything, oh and since it does not come with SD card he would need to somehow access a computer to get a linux distro anyways.

[HB]

Canuck said:


Chances are if his family can't afford a PC he has absolutely not clue about computers, or Linux in general. Since this has no documentation he would not be able to do anything, oh and since it does not come with SD card he would need to somehow access a computer to get a linux distro anyways.


This is where getting the project involved with schools would come in: some amount of documentation and access to pre-loaded SD cards could be provided. Besides, surely he has friends he can ask "hey dude, can you download this for me?". And the introduction to computers and Linux has to come somewhere, and the whole point of this project is that this could be it for many. We'd never get anywhere as a society if every new innovation and idea of how to make things better was met with "but no-one knows how to use that" and was just left at that.

[jamesh]

Canuck said:


HB said:


Canuck said:


Most kids have Xbox or PS3's, or some budget gaming PC anyways. If kids wanted to program, they probably already have a much more powerful PC at  home.


Not necessarily. Not all of the families with kids who are or would be interested in mucking around with computers can afford to get them. And even if they do have a family PC, the parents may not be comfortable with the idea of the kids screwing around with it in this kind of way. But this? Any parents not so destitute that their kids are literally starving could afford to get one. Kids interested in technology living with luddite parents could scrape together enough allowance to get one. And importantly, in contrast to the setup of the typical home PC, its got an operating system environment well suited to playing around with programming.


Chances are if his family can't afford a PC he has absolutely not clue about computers, or Linux in general. Since this has no documentation he would not be able to do anything, oh and since it does not come with SD card he would need to somehow access a computer to get a linux distro anyways.


Rather a defeatist attitude if you ask me. It's expected that people will have no clue - that's the point - giving people a clue. And there will be documentation available, SD cards preinstalled etc. So people will be able to use the device out of the box.

[Canuck]

HB said:


Canuck said:


Chances are if his family can"t afford a PC he has absolutely not clue about computers, or Linux in general. Since this has no documentation he would not be able to do anything, oh and since it does not come with SD card he would need to somehow access a computer to get a linux distro anyways.


This is where getting the project involved with schools would come in: some amount of documentation and access to pre-loaded SD cards could be provided. Besides, surely he has friends he can ask "hey dude, can you download this for me?". And the introduction to computers and Linux has to come somewhere, and the whole point of this project is that this could be it for many. We"d never get anywhere as a society if every new innovation and idea of how to make things better was met with "but no-one knows how to use that" and was just left at that.


Schools probably won"t get in on it, I"m not hating on the project I just predict it won"t get that big in the education community. Also, the world will never get into a "but no-one knows how to use that" because computing in general is getting larger all the time and there is a high demand and there are high paying jobs. Even if it does, the average kid who is buying this device probably won"t be too rich and therefor would not be able to expand on his knowledge in a University and make something out of his programming hobby. I would not be buying this device if it wasn't great for DIY projects such as NAS or media pc because I have a decent setup running here.

[Hiro]

liz said:


One thing the foundation is planning on is running competitions (probably monthly) for the best programming project. (Kids only.) We will be offering bribes prizes for the best each month to encourage kids to get programming, and we"re hoping that those bribes prizes will be pretty hefty - a sum of money that would make a real difference to a kid.


Why not run a competition for oldies as well, no need for prizes just put each months winner on the web sites front page. That would be cool enough for any of us to want to try and win. I know that older people would do the programming anyway but the competition would just drive them on a bit more. Also if you wanted to get a particular project developed just put it out there as that months competition and it'd soon get done.

[HB]

Canuck said:


Also, the world will never get into a "but no-one knows how to use that" because computing in general is getting larger all the time and there is a high demand and there are high paying jobs.


That's kind of my point; this hypothetical poor kid we're talking about wouldn't say "I don't know about this computer thing, forget about it", he'd say "hot damn, a cheap computer I can do stuff with!".

Canuck said:


Even if it does, the average kid who is buying this device probably won"t be too rich and therefor would not be able to expand on his knowledge in a University and make something out of his programming hobby.


Maybe, maybe not. But even if he doesn't expand on it in a university, it's still possible to expand on it otherwise, and will open up employment opportunities that otherwise wouldn't have been available to him. And even if he doesn't pursue a programming or computing career, the knowledge and skills can still be useful for other things. Ultimately, his life will have been made better for having had one of these.

[Canuck]

Depends I guess, someone should make use of the GPU and do some 4:3 video beginner tutorials with commentary and a short introduction into a easy language such as Python 3.x.x

Though I have my serious doubts of the scoped mass production for education goals.

[jamesh]

Canuck said:


Depends I guess, someone should make use of the GPU and do some 4:3 video beginner tutorials with commentary and a short introduction into a easy language such as Python 3.x.x

Though I have my serious doubts of the scoped mass production for education goals.


Really? I hadn't got that from your posts.

People are already working on what you describe - the educational stuff is due mid next year, should be lots of stuff ready by them.

[Digital-Wangateur]

My son may be unusual because he likes to play the ancient terminal game Nethack, but he is 10yrs old and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the RPi ... he has good gaming PC an Xbox 360 and a Wii.  We would like to help develop a kit targeted at his age.  It is basically a media and gaming box with interfaces to common game controllers with an included  set of open source games and media management and display programs that are easily modifiable and a howto.  When we talked about it ... and I am editing and condensing here ... he told me that we only need to be almost as good as the media and gaming experience provided his other stuff ... but... by having the ability to first modify simple things... armor color... fonts, pointers and GUI stuff ... etc you get hooked in to do more.  We are interested in making this happen is there a project like this here to be part of????