5.30am on 1st March… closest I could get to the non-existent leap-day this year 🙂
It’s been 6 years since the Raspberry Pi first went on sale. Since 2012, many millions of the family of boards have been sold. We’ve seen a lot of change in that time in terms of both the Pi’s form factor and power and also a change in the Foundation’s mission from focusing on getting more kids into programming and electronics to a more general move towards getting “digital making” into the hands of everyone.
The Pi has gone from an early computer-on-a-stick:
all the way to the powerful Raspberry Pi 3:
via the cheap-as-a-very-cheap-thing Pi Zero and Zero-W:
…becoming, in the case of the original Zero, the first computer to be given away on the front of a magazine in December 2015!
I received my first Pi in July 2012 and since then I’ve learned about electronics, soldering, Python programming, making and, just along the way, a whole lot about event management through my work with CamJam and the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend. It’s been quite a journey. However, the most valuable and most important aspect of the Pi which I’ve experienced is the community. I’ve made a lot of friends along the way, both virtual and in-person, which was an amazing thing for me, and for that I’m very grateful!
Where will Raspberry Pi go from here? Who knows? I’m sure there are more iterations of the board in the pipeline and I still believe that the Foundation has a long way to go in both it’s original mission and the newer idea of “digital making” and I’m still very much looking forward to being part of that mission, although perhaps in a different way (5 years of organising events is rather a long time!). No-one can tell when the future will take us. For now, I’ve got Pi Wars to think about and also the small matter of the next Jam, which is Potton Pi and Pints this weekend.
As always, if you fancy getting in contact, leave a comment on the blog post or contact me through the form.