The Raspberry Pi makes an awesome gift and a link to a beginner resource.

     Last week my dear sweet husband bought me a Raspberry Pi 3 kit, like the one here from CanaKit, on Amazon just to be sweet. Raspberry Pis (RPi for short) have been on the edges of my radar for over a year but this newer model is everything a college student studying for her Electrical Engineering degree could ever want.

     It reminds me of my childhood when I got an electronics kit  similar to this one for Christmas.

That was one of my favorite gifts as a child. Who needs another Barbie when you can make stuff. However, the RPi has much more versatility and I was really excited to jump into it.

     The kit comes with little documentation but before I even got the RPi I started researching how to use it and what it can do. Whoa, there is a lot of information out there. The RPi has been around since 2012 and there are many enthusiasts and makers who have used it for a variety of projects or just as a portable computer and gaming console. Many assume you already know what you are doing or going to do with it and don't actually explain much. The official magazine, made by the original creators, has all the pdfs you need to start for free but I'm better with videos.

     I found some useful videos on You Tube and eventually found Paul McWhorter's channel where he has a playlist with lessons on Linux. He has a very "high school teacher" kind of teaching style, casual and repetitive. This is good for me because I haven't done anything on a computer at a command prompt since the mid-late eighties in middle school. I'm currently on lesson 31 and I am so excited! I ordered a kit from Amazon with some electronics components and a breadboard so I can do what he has done. Just being able to program an LED to turn on and off seems like magic to me & I can't wait to get started! He also has a website at http://www.toptechboy.com/ where you can access the lessons but I haven't used it yet.

     I've learned so much from him already. I need to leave him lots of positive feedback because he is a wonderful resource for beginners like me. I highly recommend him for anyone working with any age child or a beginner adult. Next post will cover getting my RPi.