The Raspberry Pi is the size of your ID card, housed in a simple but textured cardboard box. Find the “Open Here” mark on the side, gently tear it open, and a complete Raspberry Pi with a gem-like emerald color appears before you. A whiff of paper fragrance wafts close to your nose, just like opening a neatly printed new book.

Although you can’t wait to hold it and examine it closely, you force yourself to wash your hands and carefully dry the remaining water stains between your fingers. One hand holds the cardboard box, while the other carefully lifts it from both sides, fearing to damage any of the “decorations” above. You cradle it in your hands, eyes wide open, seriously observing every part, especially a row of openings on the side, stunning you to the point that your body trembles. You can’t help but gently touch its edges, the texture instantly relaying back to your brain, a long-lost sense of joy surging in your heart.

However, you soon have a question: I already have a Raspberry Pi, how do I enjoy it?

IT Professionals and University Students

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Perhaps you are familiar with the temperament of computers, knowing how to make them work harder, you can write lines of code that a novice wouldn’t understand to achieve the functionality you desire, you have absolute control over certain areas of the information world.

Maybe you are still struggling in university, excelling in algorithms and data structures, familiar with operating systems and Linux commands, aiming to create your own product. Or perhaps you haven’t reached that level yet, but you aspire to become that way.

So why not get a Raspberry Pi? It has a 1.4GHz 64-bit 4-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, 1G LPDDR2, dual-band wireless card, Bluetooth 4.2, 300Mbps Ethernet port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, full-size HDMI, MIPI display and camera interfaces, 40-pin GPIO, SD card storage, 5V DC micro USB and PoE power supply, capable of running graphical interface Linux.

You can deploy an HTTP server on it, test and run the web systems you develop; you can use it as a media server, file server, or TV box; you can write in C/C++, Python, PHP, JAVA, or any language you like; you can run Mathematica, MATLAB, yes, those two math software that many people are obsessed with; you can access it remotely via ssh, you can VNC it from your phone, you can load your works or PPT onto it and connect it to a projector or big screen at any time to present to everyone.

Of course, you can also set it up with a keyboard and mouse, using a discarded iPad2 as a screen, and it becomes a computer.

Preparing or Starting to Learn Programming

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Perhaps you are influenced by the likes of Steve Jobs or Obama, who say everyone should learn a bit of programming, and you plan to learn it yourself or have your child learn it.

Then, you need a computer. You could use your existing office computer, but programming isn’t just installing QQ or Word; if you mess it up, you can’t do other work. If you need to buy a new one, should you get an Apple, Lenovo, or HP? How much will it cost? 8000? 5000? 4000? Or 3000? How much is a Raspberry Pi? Let me calculate, you can get ten of them for the price of 3000.

The Raspberry Pi supports any programming language you want to learn; it comes with Python pre-installed, which is the very popular big snake, essential for artificial intelligence and big data. You can connect it to your home TV, an outdated iPad2, or any smartphone, plug in a wireless keyboard and mouse, open Python IDLE, and in minutes, you can write your HelloWorld. You can also play with the built-in Python Games, and if you find it unsatisfactory, you can use Pygame to write your own game. Indeed, the Raspberry Pi also has the legendary Scratch, a programming tool for kids.

The Raspberry Pi was born for those learning programming; its founders proposed the concept of a low-cost PC back in 2006, realizing that children and beginners couldn’t freely practice programming on home and office computers, which would severely impact their programming abilities. Thus, the Raspberry Pi was created, reducing the cost of trial and error to just a few hundred yuan.

Enjoying Electronics

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Perhaps you love new gadgets; you’ve bought a high-definition set-top box to watch various blockbuster movies, a smart speaker that greets you in the morning, a remote-controlled car that can drift and flip, a cloud security camera that allows real-time browsing from your phone, or an AI companion robot that can talk to your child. You find them cool and can’t help but show them off, but you’re afraid others might say you’re showing off your wealth; these things aren’t cheap.

Why not use a Raspberry Pi to make your own? You only need to buy some basic electronic development tools, pair them with sensors, cameras, or antennas, get a shell you like, power the Raspberry Pi, run some simple Python programs, and you can have a cool electronic product made by yourself. If you show this off to your friends, they will satisfy your vanity without saying you’re showing off your wealth.

If you tinker with it with your child, perhaps the next legendary world-changer will be born in your family; although this idea seems a bit unrealistic, there’s always a chance of one in a million. Even if you don’t hit the jackpot, it won’t be too bad.

Need to Save on Information Technology Costs

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Perhaps you are the head of IT in your organization, or you are the boss. You may need to implement a software system to improve work efficiency; you might want to create something new to showcase your work results, such as an internal OA, electronic ledger, electronic inquiry system, CRM system, and various other information systems.

However, you are not a large organization, and the users of these systems may not even reach hundreds or thousands; you don’t need to buy servers that cost tens of thousands, nor do you need a high-performance PC just to run an electronic ledger that people only glance at. A Raspberry Pi will suffice.

The Raspberry Pi can fully meet your small-scale IT needs; if one isn’t enough, you can have two, and if two aren’t enough, you can have three. Even with ten, it will still cost less than a regular office computer, and when your scale expands, you can buy high-performance machines later.

In 2017, Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States used 750 Raspberry Pis to create a computer with 3000 cores, possessing the computing power equivalent to a supercomputer, costing only about 180,000 yuan when converted to RMB. This is a supercomputer.

Strong Curiosity

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You have a strong sense of curiosity, enjoy tinkering with new gadgets, and are keen to explore everything unknown to you, wanting to understand everything. So why not pay attention to the Raspberry Pi?

You can first see what others are doing and then think about what else you can do; perhaps you will be the inventor of new gameplay, becoming a new generation leader and recreating that legend that has always been imitated but never surpassed.

If you want to play with the Raspberry Pi, come to the “Hui Tinker” studio to find me; there are many boxes waiting for you to unpack.

Long press the QR code below to join the group for college students.

Li Bo’s Thinking Notes

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