
RS Components donates Raspberry Pi kits to schools
Held on, at the National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park, ‘Centenary Day’ celebrated 100 years of radio technology and the existence of the RSGB, which represents Britain’s amateur radio enthusiasts. The event was presided over by Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, 8th Baronet and Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire.
During the day, a number of activities, talks and displays took place, involving the general public, members of the RSGB, and three schools in Bedfordshire – Wootton Upper School, Holywell Middle School and Marsden Vale Middle School – from which 20 children, who have demonstrated a keen aptitude and passion for mathematics and IT, were selected to take part in a ‘Buildathon’.
The main event of the day, the ‘Buildathon’ – supported by RS via its donations of the Raspberry Pi boards – was all about learning through building. Students were given a project to build a radio to receive 14MHz transmissions and decode the datastream using Raspberry Pi computers. While most were building receivers, a small group were also learning to program the Raspberry Pi to create a computer-logging program that listed all the amateur radio stations they managed to tune into on the day. In addition to the ‘Buildathon’, Raspberry Pi enthusiasts also talked about how they had used their Pi for many different applications such as bird-box time-lapse photography.
Two RS Components executives – Colin Eddy, Business Development Manager for Raspberry Pi & New Technologies, and Pete Wood, DesignSpark Community Manager – also attended the day to demonstrate to the amateur radio society members just a few of the capabilities of the Raspberry Pi, including giving demos of the Model B Raspberry Pi camera module.
Visit RS Components at https://uk.rs-online.com
