Raspberry Pi A, User Manual, Page: 25 / 314

I N T R O D U C T I O N
9
We think physical computing—building systems using sensors, motors, lights and micro-
controllers—is something that gets overlooked in favour of pure software projects in a lot of
instances, and it’s a shame, because physical computing is
massive fun . To the extent that
there was any children’s computing movement when we began this project, it was a physical
computing movement. The LOGO turtles that represented physical computing when we
were kids are now fighting robots, quadcopters or parent-sensing bedroom doors, and we
love it. However, the lack of General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) on home PCs is a real
handicap for many people getting started with robotics projects. The Raspberry Pi exposes
GPIO so you can get to work straight away.
I keep being surprised by ideas the community comes up with which wouldn’t have crossed
my mind in a thousand years: the Australian school meteor-tracking project; the Boreatton
Scouts in the UK and their robot, which is controlled via an electroencephalography headset
(the world’s first robot controlled by Scouting brain waves); the family who are building a
robot vacuum cleaner; Manuel, the talking Christmas moose. And I’m a real space cadet, so
reading about the people sending Raspberry Pis into near-earth orbit on rockets and balloons
gives me goosebumps.
In the first edition of this book, I said that success for us would be another 1,000 people
every year taking up Computer Science at the university level in the UK. That would not only
be beneficial for the country, the software and hardware industries, and the economy; but it
would be even more beneficial for every one of those 1,000 people, who, I hope, discover that
there’s a whole world of possibilities and a great deal of fun to be had out there. We’ve gotten
greedy now: I’d like to see that sort of statistic replicated in many more countries across the
developed world, and to see something similar starting to happen in the developing world.
We’ve been immensely proud to see Raspberry Pi labs spring up in the most unlikely places,
like a village lab in a part of Cameroon with no electricity network where the Pis run off solar
power, generators and batteries, or a school high in the mountains in Bhutan.
Building a robot when you’re a kid can take you to places you never imagined—I know
because it happened to me!
—Eben Upton