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droneseco · 5 years

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Piper Raspberry Pi DIY Computer Kit Review (and Giveaway!)

Our verdict of the Piper Computer Kit STEM Learning Toy: If you're looking to kickstart your child's STEM skills, this Raspberry Pi-powered, Minecraft-centric, feature-packed learning kit is a great option, although it is a bit pricey.910

The Raspberry Pi is a great educational device, but in its bare-bones state this might not be immediately obvious.

Several companies have attempted to “fix” this shortcoming, repackaging the Pi as part of a more STEM-focused experience for children. They’ve managed it with varying levels of success, so what does Piper bring to the table?

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The Ultimate DIY Computer Building Experience?

Well, this is more than just another Raspberry Pi and keyboard. The Piper describes itself as a “computer kit” and there is certainly a bit building involved to get this Raspberry Pi up and running.

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The website is full of endorsements from users and even Apple founder Steve Wozniak enthusing over the Piper Computer Kit, which it claims is the “ultimate D.I.Y. computer-building experience.”

You’ll no doubt agree that this is a lofty claim.

However, the Piper Computer Kit has support from Stanford University, and was a Tech Toy of the Year 2018 finalist. It aims to teach your child the necessary critical thinking, engineering skills, electronics knowledge, foundation programming, and hands-on coding.

All in all, it seems like a little more than a Raspberry Pi in a wooden box. To find out if this is the case, I enlisted the help of my seven-year-old son.

Unboxing Contents

The Piper Computer Kit ships in a standard cardboard box. It features a nice optical illusion on the side as you remove the main box from the sleeve—turning cogs. When the packaging is this good, you never quite know whether the product is going to disappoint or be awesome…

Initial impressions are drab in many ways. It’s basically a box full of wood, with a Raspberry Pi 3 even mounted on a plate of wood.

In fact, there’s wood everywhere.

In the 21st century, you might think “this is no place for wooden computers; it’s not 1977” and in many ways you’d be right.

However, the 7-inch display, mouse, breadboard (and two smaller ones), and brass fittings all fit together nicely, giving you:

a closable wooden case with the display embedded in it

a Raspberry Pi computer with access to the GPIO pins

a mouse (no keyboard)

a breadboard for mounting buttons, LEDs, etc

a battery

In short, it’s exactly what it says: a computer kit. Designed for children to build, it even features an impressive set of instructions presented as a blueprint.

About the Raspberry Pi

Several versions of the Raspberry Pi have been released since 2012, and almost all of them continue to be available. This is due to their suitability for a range of purposes.

The Piper Computer Kit ships with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. This model was released in 2016 and features onboard wireless networking and Bluetooth. With four USB ports and an Ethernet port, there is also a standard HDMI connector, multipurpose TRRS audio/media port, and a USB power connector.

Inside the Raspberry Pi 3 you’ll find a quad-core 1.2Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM and a Broadcom GPU. These are combined into a single SoC (System on a Chip) to save space and make the computer more efficient.

A microSDHC slot is also provided, which is where the operating system loads from. The Piper Computer Kit features the Piper OS preinstalled on an 8GB card. This should be inserted into the Raspberry Pi before the computer is screwed into the box.

Also in the box is a 7-inch LCD HDMI display, a USB mouse, a portable Lithium battery, and a speaker. You’ll also find the various USB and HDMI cables needed to hook everything up, and plenty of switches, buttons, wires, and LEDs.

What Can You Learn With This?

It could be argued that the Raspberry Pi’s potential for educating young children has never been fully realized. Fortunately, Piper has proved that all that is needed is the right set of peripherals, components, and a battery pack.

Aimed at STEM/STEAM students aged 7-13, the Piper Computer Kit should improve science, technology, engineering, art, and math. These are the most important elements of learning in many western schools currently, due to shortcomings in these fields.

On a practical level, this means putting together circuits, playing a Minecraft-based game, and solving math and logic puzzles.

If that wasn’t enough, your child will gain some useful insight into how to construct a wooden computer case. In fact, working through this stage will help foster an engagement with the computer like you have never known before…

Building the Piper Raspberry Pi Computer

Time for some honesty; the Piper isn’t an easy build. My son Bruce is nearly 8, and the kit is aimed at 7-13-year olds. As such, there was some initial difficulty getting started.

Bruce is adept at Lego, Meccano, and other construction toys, so the principle of interlocking wooden components, screws, and nuts was not alien to him. After some early friction regarding the approach (blueprint or no blueprint?) he was able to establish a good rhythm, with dad standing by for assistance.

It took about two hours to build the breadboard box, bottom half of the case, and the lid. That’s not too bad going; I reckon the entire build was around three hours from start to finish. It’s easy to go wrong with an excited young engineer desperate to get his computer up and running, however.

Hopefully we both learned the importance of following the blueprint.

Certainly, once the screen was fitted into the lid, and the Raspberry Pi secured, it wasn’t long before the Piper was booted up. That’s when the real magic begins…

Booting Up and Getting Started

If the Piper battery is charged, you’ll be able to boot up the computer. Curiously, this is the only option; you cannot use the USB cable to power the Raspberry Pi and display. As such, it pays to keep the battery topped up overnight.

Once booted, you’ll see the Piper desktop environment and a video demonstrating what can be done with the device. At this stage, the computer needs connecting to your wireless network, which should be done via mouse.

It’s wise to check for updates before proceeding. Once this is done, the Raspberry Pi is rebooted and the journey begins…

Meet Piperbot

The Minecraft element of the Piper Computer Kit is based around the adventures of Piperbot. This character and his friends are initially voiced by what seem to be children, which does seem to devalue the proceedings somewhat.

Whoever controls the Piperbot gets to embark on the missions, which begin with basic movement using the mouse. A few minutes later, however, and Piperbot is gaining some additional mobility thanks to the GPIO, breadboard, buttons, and connector wires.

Some kids might fly with this; however, Bruce ran into trouble. We found that accidentally clicking the mouse too many times exited the on-screen guide to connecting the breadboard to the Pi. Fortunately, it wasn’t the end of the world as the guide view (still within the Minecraft world) could be revisited.

Essentially what you have after the first 30 minutes is a button-based “wooden” game controller, with additional controls created on a per-mission basis on the smaller breadboards.

Electronics for Kids

Any child lucky enough to receive the Piper Computer Kit will have a whole world of electronics open to them.

Not only does the project box require building from scratch, the projects (which can be enjoyed individually as well as in the story mode) aid in the understanding of creating simple circuits and connections.

But what has Bruce learned from the experience of building and continuing to use his Piper Raspberry Pi? He tells me that he enjoyed building the box the most, and fitting everything together. But he also thought that being able to build his own controller was awesome, and likes making the various switches.

At 7, he’s at the younger end of the Piper target audience. As such, Bruce needed some encouragement and guidance in places, but ultimately enjoyed it.

And he’s absolutely opposed to sharing the Piper with his twin sister…

A Piper for Every Home and Classroom!

Reviewing the Piper Computer Kit, I thought giving it to my son to work through was the best option. But when I saw the blueprint, the wooden box components, the interlocking teeth, and the Raspberry Pi, it dawned on me just how awesome the kit is.

In short, it’s everything I would have wanted from a computer 30 years ago.

Since putting the Piper together, Bruce has split his time equally between the sandboxed Minecraft on his tablet, and the adventure on offer in his self-built little computer. Solving puzzles with wires and switches is proving a challenge that he relishes, and he’s loved every moment with the device.

Forget tablets and Chromebooks. If you want to get your children familiar with technology, start with the Piper Computer Kit.

Enter the Competition!

Piper DIY Computer Kit Giveaway

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sheminecrafts · 6 years

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Is the world ready for the return of the PDA?

I want to live in the Gemini’s universe. It’s one where the promise of on-demand hardware has been fulfilled. Where crowfunding, rapid prototyping, scalable manufacturing all of those good things have improved our lives by giving us the devices we both want and need. It’s the utopian dream of 2011, fully realized.

In the Gemini universe, the PDA never went away. It simply adapted. All of those irritated anti-touch typers had nothing to complain about. Sure, the iPhone still moved a billion units, because Apple, but the physical keyboard simply evolved alongside it, because tech should adapt to people and not the other way around.

Of course, the realities of technological Darwinism are much darker, and every half decade or so, there’s an extinction-level event, and Apple’s smartphone hit the earth like football field-sized asteroid covered in the bubonic plague. Over the past 10 years, many have and tried and all have failed to address the shrinking, but vocal niche of consumers bemoaning the death of the physical keyboard.

Many of us, myself included, fell in love with the Gemini at first sight when we spotted it across the room at CES. It wasn’t the hardware or the execution, so much as the idea. And, of course, we weren’t alone. When an astonishing 6,200 people came together to pledge $2.2 million on Indiegogo to help bring it to life, it was clear London-based Planet Computers had struck a chord.

And with both Nokia and BlackBerry having waged comebacks of sorts (albeit through licensing deals), it seems the iPhone’s 10th anniversary has been the perfect time to revel in a bit of mobile nostalgia. People have gone utterly gaga over the 3310 — clearly there must also be space in amongst this smartphone fatigue where a PDA can positively flourish.

In one sense, it almost didn’t matter what the final hardware looked like, this felt like a kind of bellwether. But in a larger and more important sense, of course it did. When it comes to consumer electronics, people don’t buy ideas, they by hardware. And in the cold, harsh light of day, the Gemini is a far more exciting concept that it is an actual product.

The product is a return of sorts for the Psion 5, with some of that clamshell’s designs back on board. And indeed, the device takes more than a few design cues from that 20-plus-year-old piece of hardware. The build itself is a bit of a mixed bag, here. It’s solid, but the clamshell ensures that it’s big and bulky, compared to standard smartphones with similarly sized screens (5.9-inch).

It’s not much to look at from the outside, with a plain metal casing, through there are some innovative touches here, including a break in the top that can be plied open to access the device’s innards, using compatible tools. The lid flips open, with a nice, satisfying motion, but screen’s hinge feels loose, moving each time you interact with the touchscreen. It would have also been nice to have the display open at different angles, but there are only two positions here: opened and closed.

As for typing, well, if you’re among the vast majority of mobile users have made the leap to touchscreen typing, you’re going to have to unlearn those skills. My own typing on the keyboard is nowhere close to what I’m able to achieve on a touchscreen these days. For a few fleeting moments, I entertained the idea of writing this review on the thing, but almost immediately backed down, when I found it difficult to type even a sentence right the first time.

The device’s size makes for an extremely cramped keyboard, in which many of the keys have to do double duty. But the width and girth of the device itself means there aren’t too many scenarios in which using the keyboard make a whole lot of sense. Attempting to type while holding it feels like an almost acrobatic feat. Really, a flat surface, like a desk, is your best bet, at which point you’re left wondering why you didn’t simply shell out the money for a real laptop. The ability to dual-boot Linux and the inclusion of a healthy 64GB of storage are interesting cases for the product as more of a small computer than a massive phone, that, of course, is ultimately hampered by the small display with smartphone dimensions.

That gets at what is perhaps a larger issue here. It’s unclear which problems the device is looking to solve in a world of ubiquitous slate phones and low-cost laptops and tablets. There aren’t ultimately all that many scenarios in which the throwback makes more sense than the hundreds of other available options, so it’s hard to recommend this as either a primary phone or laptop in 2018.

Perhaps many of its issues can be chalked up to first-generation hardware issues. There’s a lot to be said for the mere fact that the company was able to deliver a product in the first place. The Gemini certainly works as a compelling niche device, and it would be great to see Planet explore this idea further.

Anything that frees us from the oppression of nearly identical handsets is a victory in and of itself. As I said earlier, I want to live a world where devices like the Gemini can peacefully coexist with more mainstream devices. I just won’t be using it as my phone any time soon.

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1nebest · 6 years

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Is the world ready for the return of the PDA?

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andoridspotnews-blog · 7 years

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CES 2013: a window into the coming year's innovation patterns CES is a colossal, tangled web of a show—we attempt to unwind the important threads.

The Ars staff is sheltered and sound at home subsequent to overcoming 2013's Consumer Electronics Show, somewhat drained and somewhat footsore yet at the same time perfectly healthy. We sent eight individuals to explore the show floor this year—another Ars record!— and keeping in mind that we didn't get the opportunity to take a gander at almost all that we got to see and touch (and not touch) a considerable measure of cool things.

Consistently after (and some time recently, and amid) CES there's protesting among the tech news coverage set about whether the show stays applicable in a period of moment PR email impacts, organization particular gatherings and keynotes, and data releases that give every one of us we have to think about new stuff a long time before the official uncovering. To some extent, the show is less vital now than it once was: not each astonished iPhone case or $200 Android tablet merits flying 33% of your staff the nation over to see, and the measure of really shiny new stuff in plain view keeps on lessening. In any case, the sheer size and extent of the show is with the end goal that (on the off chance that you know where to look) you can at present get an entirely smart thought of how the year in tech will play out. We've officially given you a voyage through the floor through our many picture displays, and now we've gathered and refined our contemplations on 2013's contraptions, chips, and strategies, with only an indication of discourse on the show itself.

Testing iOS and Android

You could stay with standard players like Apple's iOS and Google's Android, or you could look toward Mozilla, Ubuntu, and RIM for something somewhat extraordinary—or somewhat less refined. One pattern at the current year's CES was the displaying of option portable working frameworks. None of them are accessible to utilize right now, yet their negligible nearness recommends that as open guidelines turn into the standard we might see a greater amount of these manifest in the coming years.

For one thing, Mozilla's group put Firefox OS on a repurposed Android handset to show how the product will work outside of an emulator. The working framework is completely based on norms based open Web innovations, similar to HTML 5 and CSS, which ought to make it simpler for designers to deliver applications for it.

On the show floor, Canonical likewise flaunted its new Ubuntu telephone OS running on a Galaxy Nexus. Tragically, we weren't permitted to really touch the interface and swipe through it ourselves, however we got a walkthrough of it. Ubuntu telephones don't use any equipment catches for route. Rather, clients can swipe forward and backward between screens, or swipe up from the base to raise application-particular menus. The source code for Ubuntu telephone OS is not accessible presently.

Ars likewise had an opportunity to review RIM's anticipated BlackBerry 10 working framework. The organization trusts that its signal based UI and association with substance suppliers like 7digital will help give it a moment twist in the versatile wars.

Both Canonical and Mozilla presently can't seem to accomplice up with equipment makers to disseminate their particular versatile working frameworks, yet BlackBerry 10 will make its official introduction not long from now.

Toss out the TV you as of now have, purchase another cell phone

On the off chance that the huge names in innovation revealed any new item this year, odds are it was a 4K (or "Ultra HD," contingent upon your decision of speech) TV. While there's a lengthy, difficult experience to the simple transmission of 4K substance to these showcases, for the present, what there is to see on them looks completely wonderful. A 8K show, which additionally falls under the Ultra HD designator, was on view at Sharp's corner and was stunning. Looking down the 2013 street, we're not going to see 4K TVs appearing in the lion's share of homes, yet we'll certainly begin seeing a greater amount of them in hardware stores to get clients used to the possibility that their 1080p sets are presently completely lacking.

Past that, there wasn't much new to see. I was more stunned by the move in the way organizations were introducing themselves; Qualcomm, for example, is endeavoring to convey itself to the fore of shoppers' psyches by joining its name to different applications and brands (NASCAR, the rebooted Star Trek establishment, and Sesame Street, to give some examples). The activity is intended to motivate shoppers to purchase items in light of their incorporation of a Qualcomm chip, particularly the 800 arrangement model that is set to arrive this coming summer.

In any case, I expect it will be exceptionally hard to Qualcomm to build up that sort of brand unwaveringness when it more often than not works so a long ways off camera. No lack of respect the organization and its pervasiveness, yet opening a keynote with three young people shrieking that it is so amazing to be a piece of "Era M" was, best case scenario, tone hard of hearing, best case scenario, Qualcomm attempting to be something it's most certainly not.

ARM is sitting beautiful

On my last entire day at CES, I met with ARM Mobile Computing Director Jeff Chu to discuss the most recent and most noteworthy innovation from the organization behind for all intents and purposes each cell phone and tablet processor on Earth. We discussed how Cortex-A7 processors are making it conceivable to convey $100 cell phones with execution generally proportional to 2011's top of the line handsets. We discussed how Cortex-A50 arrangement chips will support execution and help ARM make advances in the server room. We discussed how new assembling process hubs will help ARM keep on driving down power utilization.

In any case, you know what we didn't discuss? Android versus iOS. Samsung versus Apple. Tablets versus cell phones. Android discontinuity. Regardless of whether Windows Phone, BlackBerry 10, Firefox OS, the Ubuntu telephone OS, or any of the other piece players in the field would figure out how to discover vast scale achievement. That is on the grounds that regardless of who is winning the cell phone and tablet wars at any given minute, ARM is driving practically everything, and the length of this market keeps on flourishing it doesn't generally make a difference to them who is on top.

This is genuine whether the organizations being referred to really permit ARM's CPU or GPU outlines (as do organizations like Nvidia and Samsung) or simply their direction sets (as do Qualcomm and Apple); whatever they do, they're paying those lucrative authorizing charges to ARM, and despite the fact that Intel is undermining to get up to speed it won't occur in 2013.This was my first CES, so I don't have any splendid pattern perceptions to share. In any case, I will state that the inclination infesting the whole show appeared to be one of constrained good faith. All the different innovation organizations gave off an impression of being vigorously pumping out the message that "cheerful days are here once more," and that any hint of a burst air pocket is a distant memory. Be that as it may, when squeezed, nobody truly had anything earth-shaking to flaunt.

There were absolutely highlights and exceptions, on the grounds that there dependably are, yet overwhelmingly the vibe was of an entire chaos of organizations attempting their guts out to spruce up warmed revives. Qualcomm's keynote was a confounded and silly chaos, in spite of the fact that I liked seeing Big Bird in a tie. Samsung's "Web of things" is a retread of a thought that has been around since in any event the 1990s with Web-empowered espresso pots (which even have their own convention and RFC). Really, hold up, the "Web of everything" thought was being pushed by Qualcomm, as well.

As our own Peter Bright has already watched, 4K TVs likely won't drive so high a redesign cycle as past new TV innovation. PC OEMs and segment sellers confront a similar issue, with a large portion of them whipping their marking in new headings to attempt to drive mindfulness—most PC organizations had no less than one favor auto some place in their stalls with "Fueled BY $OUR_BRAND" stickers on top of it.

It's presumably too banality to state that there is just the same old thing new under the sun yet despite the fact that this is the main CES I've been to, it for the most part felt like scraps from the microwave.

All-IP telcos are inescapable, however how they get directed is disputable

The vital things at CES don't generally occur on the show floor or have anything to do with devices. It was at CES this year that AT&T depicted its arrangements to dispose of the Public Switched Telephone Network for good and turn into an all-IP telco. An AT&T official in a board exchange said the customary phone system is getting to be noticeably out of date.

With the Federal Communications Commission examining an AT&T proposition, the customary telephone system could be dead by 2018. That may basically be an unavoidable outgrowth of innovative advance, yet AT&T is wanting to utilize this move to dispose of imposing business model period directions that forestalled uncalled for rivalry and extended access to benefit even in provincial territories. AT&T told the FCC as of late that "ordinary open utility style direction is no longer essential or proper in the developing all-IP environment."

Industry sorts not partnered with AT&T said much a similar thing in the CES board tending to the move to an all-IP telco. Arrange nonpartisanship decides that keep Internet specialist co-ops from treating contenders' substance uniquely in contrast to their own particular are pointless in light of the fact that there hasn't been any "market disappointment," said Los Angeles County Superior Court judge and previous link lawyer Daniel Brenner.

None other than Internet co-maker Vint Cerf was likewise close by at CES, and cast a suspicious eye. "In the event that no control prompts your loss of decision of access to applications and substance, then that is not a worthy result," Cerf said.

Cerf noticed that opposition for Internet benefit has essentially dissipated since the times of dial-up Internet. These days, you're fortunate to have two options for brilliant Internet.

All-IP systems could improve telcos more effective and ready to convey astonishing administrations. However an absence of direction could bring up alarming issues that should be tended to throughout the following couple of years.

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1nebest · 6 years

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