Rasberry pi guide for dads

[Some Gump]

Hi forum,

My 10 year old son has decided the thing he wants more in the world is a rasberry pi. I am 10% educated here - I understand kind of what they are, but I’m not sure beyond that!

Is there such a thing as a foolproof kit aimed at kids? I’m sure I could gen up and do this with him, but being selfish - remember the days of sorting drivers, downloading bits and bars and trying to make them all work from DOS / early windows in my youth, and it’s pretty much the last thing I want to do on a weekend now!

I double don’t want to have to spend ages trawling the web before even embarking on a Linux learning curve..

So if I can find something he can be self sufficient on, then I might relent and let him get one. If not, there are a lot of other father son things I’d rather be doing

Thanks in advance..

[eeLee]

what does he want to do with the Pi?
I am sure he's deep in the world of YouTube and HowTos. It's not hard....also if he wants to connect to things and use Python to build out systems, that is interesting too.

don't be his anchor

[geeks]

Buy him a Pi, a decent SD card and leave him to it, plenty of YT resources etc for him to get stuck into and the worse thing that happens here is he gets an interest in STEM and a career.

[skilly1]

Was looking at this for my 13 year old:

https://inventr.io/step/sale-5-3/?fbclid=IwAR3qWYQ...

[ARHarh]

More than one SD card, as its nice to have a card all set up and one to mess about with especially when you are learning. Although these days with the cost of SSD drives it may be wiser to buy an SSD or 2 as they are far more robust. Don't need a lot of space.

[geeks]

skilly1 said:

Was looking at this for my 13 year old:

https://inventr.io/step/sale-5-3/?fbclid=IwAR3qWYQ...

I am not 13 but can I be your child for the purposes of this?

[Some Gump]

Thanks guys, appreciated!

[here_we_go]

Have a look on eBay for a Kano Computer kit (they don't make them new anymore).

Eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115984187356

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/kano-com...

[Baldchap]

In the absence of a link for what he actually wants, here you go:

https://thepihut.com/

They're just a cheap computer that runs on an SD card. Like others have said, depending on budget get one and an SSD for him to set up on as the SD cards can fail.

If he's reasonably bright and has internet elsewhere, he'll have no trouble.

This 4B starter kit has everything but the SSD... https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-starter...

Pi Zeros are much less powerful and typically designed to run specific functions, Picos are primarily for even more specific automation, it is the non-zero and non-pico you're probably wanting.

The starter kit has an SD card that will install the OS however he likes - you won't need to trawlnfor drivers or anything. Personally I'd get the SD, copy it on your PC and keep the original for when he wants to start again...

Edited by Baldchap on Tuesday 28th November 07:30