Piper computer kit
Christian Cawley weighs up if it’s worth sticking a Raspberry Pi in a wooden box, pretending it’s a laptop and giving it to the kids…
Christian Cawley weighs up if it’s worth sticking a Pi in a wooden box for education.
Portable Raspberry Pi solutions seem to come along with alarming regularity – usually with a 3D-printed chassis and an ill-fitting keyboard. Piper has released a kit that not only subverts the idea of a Raspberry Pi laptop, it mocks the idea of a portable system: a portable Raspberry Pi that you might not actually want to move and is made of wood.
Shipping with over 25 laser-cut wooden components, 20+ electronic components, a 7,800 mah rechargeable battery and even an eight-square-foot laminated blueprint, the Piper Computer Kit is quite unlike anything else you’ve ever seen. Part Raspberry Pi starter kit, part portable computing experience and part electronics beginner hub, the completed experience is unified by a customised Minecraft game. This teaches the young user of the kit the necessary electronics skills to create a dedicated controller and programmable switches to complete missions.
Aimed at kids aged 8-13 and with a heavy dose of STEM, the Piper Computer Kit can be tricky to build, but there is a real sense of accomplishment once everything is slotted together, screwed into place, and the fun begins. I built the kit with my seven and a half year-old son and he’s still using it, months later. He’s also got the blueprint stashed away somewhere because… well, he’s a kid, after all.
The wooden components might seem jarring at first but given the presentation here of the Pi as an educational toolkit, it soon makes perfect sense. It’s also evocative of the homebrew era of home computing, which seems strangely apt for the Raspberry Pi.
A certain amount of patience is required when constructing the case. Younger children will need assistance, as even the most adept Lego fan will run into trouble with a screwdriver and 5mm screws. Those at the top end of the target age range should fare better. In the event of problems, replacement wooden parts can be ordered. Once completed, the kit is housed safely in a box with a securing catch, two hinges, a speaker, 9-inch LCD,
the mounted Raspberry Pi 3 and a mouse. There’s even a small container for the switches, jumper wires, LEDS, buzzer and any additional components you might add into the mix. Noticeably, however, there is no USB keyboard, so you’ll need to provide your own.
Once up and running, the adventures of Piper Bot begin. Accompanied by some below-average voice acting to set the stage of each mission, these challenges are nevertheless fruitful for young people. Starting off by building the controller (hooking up the included breadboard, wires and buttons to the Pi’s GPIO), the missions take Piper Bot into space, with plenty of
Minecraft-themed exploring. Meanwhile, instructions for building custom switches bring the digital environment into the real world.
With the Piper Bot missions completed, they can be rerun, or the tasks on the website completed. Beyond this, Raspbian Stretch comes with the usual features; perhaps the kit’s owner will move on to Scratch. Curiously, the Piper Computer Kit is battery-powered only; as a result, it can only be used for up to five hours at a time until the battery needs recharging.