Pi is a small, full featured computer to run Linux, this is a nice self-contained computer for experimenting. What I really like about the micro:bit is that it has lots of cool stuff built in (accelerometer, compass, display, couple of buttons, wireless connectivity). It's a nice little package and I can instantly think of little projects you could do on it to experiment with children.
You can use crocodile clips or banana plugs to connect it into experiments without worrying so much about frying it. I wouldn't suggest trying that with the Pi - it has 5V pins right next to I/Os that are killed by connecting 5V. Last I heard, the general consensus amongst users seemed to be that the best way to get I/O on a Pi for educational purposes was to hook up an Arduino or compatible and use that.
I should think it'd be safe enough just to use a 40-pin breadboard breakout and a ribbon cable with a few of the pins (i.e. all the 5V out ones) not populated. That seems like it should provide all the necessary safety (because the 5V pins aren't broken out onto the breadboard, and the J8 pins are covered by the IDC connector), and be a lot cheaper and more transparent than an Arduino besides.
Integration. RPI is nice, but it has a bunch of things that are off spec for the purpose (Pretty decent 3D graphics, but really painful to do GPU work on http://petewarden.com/2014/08/07/how-to-optimize-raspberry-p... and GPU programming is a bit advanced for 11 year olds anyways), and lacking things that allow a diverse book of "labs" to be done in class. Having built in sensors and outputs is critical. If a school had to outfit their computer labs (to the extent they still even have them) with extra HDMI screens for every work station it would really drive up the price of the program, and limit the ability.
This isn't supposed to be powerful, it is supposed to be an integrated tool that allows reasonably fun labs and learning sections for a diverse group of kids. You could arguably do the same with shields and arduino, but then you lose the form factor.
Consistency perhaps, a good educational tool's lifetime can be measured in decades if the teaching resources that support it are rich and well produced, so control over the base device would enable the investment into said resources.
Which I thought was the raison d'etre of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's existence (i.e. building educational resources around the Raspberry Pi), and why they have been mostly keeping to the same spec and form factor; they have frequently said that they weren't interested in competing in the arms race of Raspberry Pi clones so would have an infrequent hardware refresh interval.
This BBC + commercial partner effort seems like duplication to me, although the hardware itself may be cheaper/simpler and therefore have slightly different goals.
jgrahamc|10 years ago
makomk|10 years ago
aaronem|10 years ago
yasth|10 years ago
This isn't supposed to be powerful, it is supposed to be an integrated tool that allows reasonably fun labs and learning sections for a diverse group of kids. You could arguably do the same with shields and arduino, but then you lose the form factor.
Narishma|10 years ago
I think maybe you meant GPGPU? Because it's pretty easy to do GPU work on it using OpenGL ES.
tudorw|10 years ago
jimmcslim|10 years ago
This BBC + commercial partner effort seems like duplication to me, although the hardware itself may be cheaper/simpler and therefore have slightly different goals.