Monday, August 3, 2015

Summertime Pi - Part 2

Actually got to fire up the Pi for the first time last night. For the Raspberry Pi 2 hookup, you will need:

Everything that came in the CanaKit as shown in Part 1.

A USB keyboard and mouse


To begin, you will want to connect everything to the Pi. I recommend this order:

1. Put SD card into SD card slot.

2. Connect HDMI cable from Pi to monitor.

3. Connect USB keyboard and mouse.

4. Connect network cable or wireless if you chose to (Not necessary to function).

5. Connect power cable. (Note: When the power is connected, the Pi will automatically boot).


It will look like this when connected without a case:



On first boot, you will be asked to install Raspbian onto the SD card:



From there, the  operating system will attempt to boot for the first time:


Finally, the Raspbian system will load into the desktop:



My next post will detail the default software that comes loaded in Raspbian. For now, the students could connect the PI for the first time and see if they can get to this point. The included instructions are great and many more resources can be found online.

For  younger children, once the Pi is connected you could remove one component such as the USB keyboard and then ask the children what happens when it is removed (can't type). You could do this for the remaining components having them guess what they think will happen each time a component is removed/added back.

Join back next time as I take a look at the included software and see what it could be used for in a classroom environment.

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