RPi use cases explained

Here is my take on this odd situation.  There are several needs and types of stakeholders in the Pi ecosystem:

• Conceptual need in EE.  Eben Upton has many times related the problems he experienced while doing student recruitment  at university, where each year's intake candidates were seemingly  less technically experienced than the last.  I can well believe that, because we saw exactly that same problem in my own engineering department, to the point where we had to provide catch-up courses to bring part of the student intake up to the level where they could  understand basic 1st-year EE lectures.  Making very cheap hardware available that encourages experimentation by inquisitive youngsters does seem to address part of the problem squarely by fostering interest and offering direct experience with hardware.  However, it doesn't address the gap in mathematics and foundational science skills.

• Improving IT education.  The UK has a specific problem in school-level IT education, in that over time it became nothing more than vocational training in office skills.  Clearly there is much room for improvement there, but this is almost entirely unrelated to the skills shortage observed in EE recruitment.  CompSci departments might benefit a little if programming were taught in schools, but not a lot because lack of programming skills is not the bottleneck,  Stronger maths skills would be vastly more useful than programming knowledge, and would help EE as much as every other branch of engineering and the physical sciences.  Also, programming is almost always vocational training with just a smidgeon of CompSci education acquired by osmosis on the side, and very rapidly becomes dated.  To compound matters further, a high-level language with a lot of abstraction would tend to be chosen for programming education, which means that pupils would tend to learn little about computer fundamentals unless they have an awesome teacher who explains the foundations along with the programming.

• Cheap media centre.  Don't laugh, this is a major stakeholder group for Pi.  What's more, RPF have always known this, because they have promoted the very strong media capability of the Broadcom SoC countless times in their blog.  They even went as far as to sell licensed codecs which are about as distant from educational as anything could be.  This area may well be getting the most development effort as well, which is reasonable since it plays to the Pi's biggest strength and makes a very large group of Pi users happy.

• Platform for expansions.  It always did seem odd that the Foundation so often stressed the difficulty of reaching their $25/$35 price point, and yet created a board bearing proprietary MIPI DSI and CSI-2 connectors which raised the board cost and complicated PCB routing.  Even more odd is that these MIPI interfaces would not contribute significantly to the board's educational capabilities since USB cameras and displays with open interfaces were readily available at good prices.  The subsequent high investment by RPF in developing camera and display modules suggests that this was a planned business strategy from the start, and it explains why the extra connector cost was considered justified.  One possible view is that there is business advantage in creating a platform for which expansion modules could be produced using a proprietary interface spec that narrows the competition.  Whether or not that was the thinking, it is the current actuality since RPF has invested time and money in expansions and delivered product.

• Enthusiasts/makers hacking platform.  Quite distinct from the needs of EE and UK IT education, a  large group of stakeholders is the worldwide and ever-growing community of makers and related enthusiasts, which may or may not be technical.  This group is heavily interested in creative projects which typically underpin some other area of interest that isn't itself computing.  The Foundation has from the start shown some interest in supporting this group, as evidenced by the board's P1 interfacing header and the near-miraculous provision of SoC peripheral interfacing information from a SoC manufacturer that has shown very little interest in supplying open documentation.  The enthusiast/maker community is strongly aligned with the open source software and open hardware communities since closed/proprietary devices impede rather than support building things.  Unfortunately RPF has been lukewarm in this area as the board is not open hardware, the SoC has very little open documentation, and not all of the software is open source either.  Undoubtedly most of the blame for this lies with Broadcom, but RPF spokespersons have defended the restriction of information themselves as well.

• Commercial for-profit product.  This stakeholder group is small but obvious.  RPF is a registered non-profit, but Premier Farnell and RS are not, and so the Pi has to justify its place on warehouse shelves.  The typically high profits on accessories probably make this quite easy though.

It's pretty clear from the above that the Pi ecosystem has multiple interested parties and drivers, and proceeds along many roads simultaneously with varying degrees of support from the Foundation.

In other words, the Raspberry Pi's concept, rationale, targets and user base are not correlated.

Getting a single view from anyone (especially RPF) is no more productive than all those blind men feeling different parts of the elephant.  To say that it was designed for IT education is completely wrong if intended literally --- Pi would not have been designed as it was nor targetted so strongly at non-educational stakeholders if that had been the primary intention.  This makes the question of "Why is there still no educational release?" a simple one to answer:  IT education was only one driving force, and clearly not a major one.

The only certain position is from objective engineering:  it's an ARM board with specific pros and cons, and it's those pros and cons that determine its effectiveness or otherwise for any given application.  I guess that's more boring than hype-laden official positioning statements by people with vested interests, but in contrast to them, it's accurate.

Morgaine.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

• The subsequent high investment by RPF in developing camera and display modules suggests that this was a planned business strategy from the start, and it explains why the extra connector cost was considered justified.  One possible view is that there is business advantage in creating a platform for which expansion modules could be produced using a proprietary interface spec that narrows the competition. 

Actually the proprietary nature of the interface doesn't seem to be much of a problem. The actual camera sensors with the same interface and physical plug appear to be reasonable easily available off ebay and such like as spares for phones.

The roadblock is the bits that are buried inside the GPU.

I'd have to say that I originally thought the camera was a daft idea, but it's cheap enough that I bought one anyway.  If JamesH manages to sort out a couple of software niggles, I can see it having a reasonable future as a very cheap megapixel security camera amongst other things.

I see someone has already produced an aluminium case with a mount for the camera and externally a mount for additional standard lenses.

I think that's where the maker community shines.. by taking these cheap component parts and combining them into all sorts of interesting ideas.

It's complete sleight of hand, for the reasons I enumerated in my long multi-point post, #3.  There are many stakeholders and education is just one, raised when convenient and ignored when not.

Education provides great PR because it's "motherhood and apple pie", but after a year and a half there is still nothing to show for it, so at most it expresses good intentions, not investment of time and money.  Education also provides a great cover while doing something entirely different, which is to focus on selling boards and modules, promote Broadcom's ability to design effective media SoCs, and create a community frenzy based on hype, as Pete so clearly underlined.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.  As I've mentioned elsewhere several times, I think RPF did their good deed for the decade (their one and only one) when they launched a dirt-cheap ARM board and so forced this price band on every other ARM licensee in the prototyping boards sector.  That's been awesome, as people who want better boards and full documentation can now go to other suppliers.  The Pi's less than awesome design and Broadcom's disinterest in openness don't matter anymore because Pi's pricing has opened up the market.

It's complete sleight of hand,

I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Education provides great PR because it's "motherhood and apple pie"

I don't know how many times I've seen an RPi complaint deflected with something like:

"How can you possibly criticize an educational charity.  We've mortgaged our houses

for that noble purpose, you know."

but after a year and a half there is still nothing to show for it,

Have you seen the first 6 videos at

  http://www.cambridgegcsecomputing.org/courses

Eric says:

This is a wonderful start. It is good to see such professionalism and money devoted to making educational videos. ...

 

The blender lecture hides the fact that a computer program is the most interesting type of data and misses the obvious analogy between a computer program and a recipe used while cooking. An introductory cooking class will focus on reading and following a recipe. Many 14-to-16-year-old children already help in the kitchen and understand the importance of a recipe. A lecture should be both entertaining and interesting, but there are better ways to entertain than by stupidly making a smoothy using random ingredients and drinking it. Computer science does not become more interesting if it is simplified so much it is no longer useful.

 

...

Liz reponds:

I have my own experiment to make:

*Points at Clive* STUPID. STUPID STUPID STUPID.

Nope. It’s not making me feel bigger or cleverer, and I don’t think it’s enhancing any point I’m trying to make. Ho hum. Back to the drawing board.

James Clough says:

Having followed your blogs from inception and aware of the great things being done I have some concerns on the approach to the education piece.

(1) If the aim is to inspire young people to enjoy programming and being creative, why define it around the achievement of a GCSE. When I mentioned this to my son, who is 13, he couldn’t be less interested.

...

Liz reponds:

It’s hard for me not to respond to that with heavy sarcasm, given how many people have been working themselves to death on our educational offering. I am trying my best.

 

...

It looks like they're off to an interesting start.

Just leave her to it, coder27, is my advice.  Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, it's mesmerizing for all the wrong reasons, and a total waste of your time.

I'll be interested again when a new Pi board appears just in case it turns out to be good, although they'll undoubtedly stay with Broadcom so it's unlikely to be open hardware.  Until then, I think everyone knows what to expect from that quarter, and calm reasoned discussion that engages with questions isn't top of the list.

and calm reasoned discussion that engages with questions isn't top of the list.

It is interesting that they have given Gordon Hollingworth the new task of

answering questions:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/4307

Maybe something will come from that.

Or maybe E-14 can be used for productive discussions regarding education.

Clive's videos are based on the GCSE curriculum here:

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/72936-specification.pdf

which is essential to understand when discussing the videos.

For example, section 2.1.1 "Fundamentals of Computer Systems"

discusses input, output, processing, and storage, but makes no

mention of software or computer instructions that are followed like

a recipe.  And Clive's blender video followed this closely.

One point I found interesting was the discussion on clock frequency,

based on section 2.1.2.  It seemed to me that he confused the notion

of clock frequency measured in Hertz, or cycles/second, with the

fetch-decode-execute cycle.  Two confusingly similar uses of the

word "cycle". 

User Dio made a comment related to this, and Clive responded:

... I don’t see any “glaring errors” myself, just different ways of talking about a topic to a specific audience. (We call this “teaching” )

...

I’m aware of my use of the word “instruction” here but in this context I’m happy with it as the fetch-execute cycle, and instructions taking more than one cycle, are dealt with in a previous topic.  ...

This is a very interesting discussion.

The points made seem to be very intelligent observations.

I don't think your observations of the IT world are any different on this side of the world.

The educational observations are also similar, but while they teach ICT here, mostly its not going to help get programmers.

IMO Too many schools/teachers are using IT devices to teach rather than as a tool, and the basics or underlying concepts are being missed.

So my question (ignoring what the pen pushers say)

If you were to introduce computing/programming to 10-13yr olds, what would you teach?

For arguments sake .... lets assume you will be using either a Pi or BBB since it has external capabilities, and is affordable.

Would you start with a generalisation of the CPU, memory, etc and how it connects to the HMI bits.

Do you then jump to the software and how it uses the hardware to perform its tasks.

How much about the hardware do you need to teach, in order to achieve something on screen.?

Do you get into detail about the OS and how it works. (using one of the recommended/supported OS's)

What flavour of programming do you teach/introduce  ... Python/C or something else?

(Bearing in mind this is a beginning class and not a full time study at varsity)

Do you start with drag and drop (ie scratch) and hope they move on.?

Do you make it longer than one period (ie 1.5hrs) spread over a number of weeks, or do you get better traction with a full day.?

as a background

I'm not a teacher, and not a software programmer. (more like a ... dabbler)

I have introduced some pupils at my local school into Arduino.

I also support a program that introduces electronics to Year 7/8 and they get to make/program and take home a Xmas Tree.

http://www.element14.com/community/blogs/pdp7/2012/01/24/merry-birthday-to-you#comment-17591

Hence I'm interested in the thoughts.

Mark

coder27 wrote:

 

User Dio made a comment related to this, and Clive responded:

... I don’t see any “glaring errors” myself, just different ways of talking about a topic to a specific audience. (We call this “teaching” )

Ugh.  Explaining things in such a way that some people see "glaring errors"  isn't called "teaching", it's called being ambiguous, obscure or possibly incorrect.  And if it's the case that the student is mistaken, then dismissing it with a joke isn't called "teaching" either, it's called being unhelpful and leaving the student without comprehension.

Hopefully it was just an uncommon blip.  Teachers must engage.

I wouldn't know enough about teaching, but when I think about what I was taught, I think what inspired me and quite a few people I knew to begin having an interest in Engineering (even if some did not pursue a career in Engineering), a few things that stick out  all seem to have been concerned with some big picture, or an interesting goal. For example, building a model vehicle as part of a team, or learning drawing from a teacher who was a draughtsman in WW2, or a visit to see inside Concorde, etc. Not everyone would be interested in the same thing, but it gets creativity flowing, or a desire to learn. Some people went to see Concorde just to have a day outside the classroom, but I think they would still remember some interesting engineering-related things about it. Now there are some quite inspirational films and movies too - Apollo 13 and October Sky spring to mind. I don't know if such contrived examples as a blender help. But I'm no expert. This photo (source site) makes it clear that that the light-blue robot fetches data for the CPU, and that the green robot stores in registers, and the dark-blue robot reads from the program ROM.

Mark,

If you were to introduce computing/programming to 10-13yr olds, what would you teach?

First of all, I first learned programming in 10th grade, and never felt like I wished I had learned

it sooner.  In that sense I think it's different from learning a musical instrument.

I would want the students to be mature enough to be able to read a language tutorial.

There are some concepts like variables, and operator precedence (2+3*4)=14, not 20,

that are shared with algebra, so I'd want to build on a solid understanding of algebra.

I think Pascal is a decent teaching language, because you can read the entire reference

manual, the compiler doesn't do too many things behind your back, and many errors

are detected at compile time or with run-time checks.

I think you can start at any level of abstraction you think is interesting.  You can show

how to make a half-adder and full-adder out of logic gates, or you can teach base-2 arithmetic,

or you can teach assembly language programming, or you can teach python programming,

or you can teach html and javascript web design.  And I don't think it matters much what order

you teach such topics.

I don't know anything about teaching electronics.

I think calculating prime numbers by trying all possible divisors makes a good first project,

assuming the students know what a prime number is.  I gave some other suggested topics here:

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/23494?start=2&tstart=0

What I _wouldn't_ do in the first few lessons is try to teach GCSE 2.1.1

(d) explain the need for adherence to suitable professional standards in the development, use and

maintenance of computer systems

(e) explain the importance of ethical, environmental and legal considerations when creating

computer systems.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

Hopefully it was just an uncommon blip.

I suggest you don't read the rest of the comments coder27 has been quoting from then. I gave up quite quickly.

I didn't read the GCSE syllabus, or watch the videos, but I find it interesting that they appear to be slavishly following what I'll call a 'specification' and thinking everything's ok... While others are pointing out the spec may well be flawed.

I see similar stuff where people will, to some degree justifiably, close bugs with comments along the lines of 'works as designed' while completely ignoring that the design and the spec it was built from are obviously flawed if not simply wrong.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

Hopefully it was just an uncommon blip.

I suggest you don't read the rest of the comments coder27 has been quoting from then. I gave up quite quickly.

I didn't read the GCSE syllabus, or watch the videos, but I find it interesting that they appear to be slavishly following what I'll call a 'specification' and thinking everything's ok... While others are pointing out the spec may well be flawed.

I see similar stuff where people will, to some degree justifiably, close bugs with comments along the lines of 'works as designed' while completely ignoring that the design and the spec it was built from are obviously flawed if not simply wrong.

selsinork wrote:

 

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

Hopefully it was just an uncommon blip.

I suggest you don't read the rest of the comments coder27 has been quoting from then. I gave up quite quickly.

No danger of that, I gave up following that site and related links many months ago, and now let coder27 preprocess the whole Pi saga for me.  How he has the stamina and nerves of steel to put up with it I don't know, but rather him than me.

Cheers, coder27.

I gave up following that site and related links many months ago, and now let coder27 preprocess the whole Pi saga for me.

Just so I can't be accused of letting you down by neglecting to report significant RPi news,

or in case anyone's writing a book on the history of RPi, here are some perhaps underreported tidbits.

1)  Eben, who had been described as the Executive Director of the RPF as recently as 23 Jan 2013,

http://lifehacker.com/5978324/im-eben-upton-executive-director-of-the-raspberry-pi-foundation-and-this-is-how-i-work

apparently had his position as Director terminated as of 07 Jan 2013:

     http://opencorporates.com/filings/181509848

or maybe as early as 18 December 2012:

      http://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/06758215

He is now described variously as

   "Eben Upton, Co-Founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation"

http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-51657/l/element14-agrees-new-global-distribution-deal-for-raspberry-pi

or "Upton, Technical Director of Broadcom" and RPF founder

https://www.element14.com/community/community/news/blog/2013/06/26/ebon-upton-receives-the-silver-medal-for-bringing-raspberry-pi-to-the-masses

or "creator of the Raspberry Pi"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/10139778/Raspberry-Pi-inventor-joins-silver-medal-table.html

or "chip architect at Broadcom", and RPF founder

http://www.raspberrypi.org/about

It isn't known to me who is currently the Executive Director of the RPF, or what if any official

roles Eben or Liz currently have at RPF.

2)  It was widely reported that 10 beta boards were auctioned on eBay in Jan 2012, with serial number No. 01, raising £3,500,

for a total of over £16,000.  For example, Wikipedia currently says:

The ten boards (with a total retail price of £220) together raised over £16,000,^[42] with the last to be auctioned, serial number No. 01, raising £3,500.^[43

But board #01 can be seen in pictures of Eben's desk.  The buyer apparently turned out to be a fraud.

3)  regarding NPOV wikipedia edits:

by liz » Sun Aug 28, 2011 3:03 pm

I'm not able to edit the Raspberry Pi Wikipedia page for NPV reasons, but I've noticed that the name of the processor is wrong, and that the overview section's a bit out of date. If any of you is an editor and fancies having a swing at it, we'd be very grateful!

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=517

and

by liz » Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:45 pm

We never, ever edit the Raspberry Pi stuff on Wikipedia, because we take NPOV very seriously. But that doesn't mean that we don't check it assiduously.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=25995&p=236920

and

by liz » Wed Jun 26, 2013 5:12 pm

This thread remains locked, but zerxy also appears to be the person who's been busily trying to vandalise the Wikipedia page on Raspberry Pi, which resulted in it being put under protection (which we don't contribute to because of NPOV - doesn't stop us reading the history page, though,

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=45512&start=36

and

by liz » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:13 am

Hearty agree: I wish someone would give the Raspberry Pi article a good old shake-down. I used to be a very enthusiastic Wikipedia editor, but stopped when I started working on Pi (largely because now all I do is Pi and sleeping, with occasional breaks for washing and eating). The current article pains me, but because of NPOV there is bugger all I can do to correct the problem.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=25798&p=236309

followed by:

by mahjongg » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:18 am                                   

Moderator

Posts: 3351

 

well i have more than 10.000 edits to my name on en.wikipedia.org, and have been editing the Raspeberry PI article quite heavily, so im not quite neutral on the subject (LOL), but If there is anything specific in the article that bothers you, maybe I can help.

coder27 wrote:

 

Just so I can't be accused of letting you down by neglecting to report significant RPi news,

or in case anyone's writing a book on the history of RPi, here are some perhaps underreported tidbits.

 

by liz » Wed Jun 26, 2013 5:12 pm

This thread remains locked, but zerxy also appears to be the person who's been busily trying to vandalise the Wikipedia page on Raspberry Pi, which resulted in it being put under protection (which we don't contribute to because of NPOV - doesn't stop us reading the history page, though,

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=45512&start=36

I'm zerxy.  I suggest to anyone interested that they check out my "vandalism" of the Raspberry Pi page on Wikipedia.

Stuart,

   Welcome!  The moderation on this forum is night-and-day different from rpi.org

or wikipedia.  You can make insightful observations here without fear of banning,

outing, thread-locking, reverting, etc.  If your wikipedia edits are something you

would like to discuss here, feel free.

coder27 wrote:

 

Eben [cut] apparently had his position as Director terminated as of 07 Jan 2013:

     http://opencorporates.com/filings/181509848

or maybe as early as 18 December 2012:

      http://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/06758215

That seems clear enough, but "Why?" is a more difficult question.  I wonder if there is some kind of rule in UK about directors of non-profits not being allowed to simultaneously be directors of for-profit companies on which the non-profit is dependent?  Or maybe some kind of tax reason?

Maybe someone should simply ask him at his next personal appearance in an RPF role.  I remember from his early days that he used to answer questions quite clearly without the evasion that is typical of politicians and PR people.

With such a large numebr of RPI malcontents runingon this forum I can only say it will be a matter of time before the Fanboi horde finds us and chases us about with torches and pitchforks

Maybe someone should simply ask him at his next personal appearance in an RPF role. 

Maybe RPF should set up a web site with an "About us" page that says who their officers

and directors are.

Maybe RPF should set up a web site with a forum where questions like this can be asked.

Maybe E14 can tell us who signs any recent contracts on behalf of RPF.

lots of maybe's.

With such a large numebr of RPI malcontents runingon this forum I can only say it will be a matter of time before the Fanboi horde finds us and chases us about with torches and pitchforks

Perhaps.  But the Fanboi horde has been told by JamesH that it's worthwhile reading this forum,

and not too many have shown up to cause trouble.  The ones that do, it's pretty obvious who they are.

by jamesh » Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:51 pm

Please take some of what said on that forum with pinch of salt - lots of pie in the sky thinking on there, which tend to gives people the wrong idea. They don't have any more information available than anyone here - less in fact than the mods here. Obviously we cannot make changes to that site when there is wrong information - that's E14's moderators jobs and they don't actually have any as far as I can tell! It also tends to be frequented by people who have been banned from this site for various reasons, so can have some rather bitter and unpleasant commentary. That said, there is also lots of good information there, so worthwhile keeping an eye on it. Just keep the above in mind.

That seems clear enough, but "Why?" is a more difficult question.  I wonder if there is some kind of rule in UK about directors of non-profits not being allowed to simultaneously be directors of for-profit companies on which the non-profit is dependent?  Or maybe some kind of tax reason?

OK, here's what I think Andy has been struggling to explain.

UK charities have rules about for-profit trading: 

  http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/cc35.aspx#d

A trading subsidiary must be used in any case where there would be a significant risk to the assets of the charity, if it were to carry on non-primary purpose trading itself (see C8). ...

RPF apparently felt the need to spend a few hundred thousand dollars of what would

have likely been scarce charitable funds to buy up 50,000 256MB RAM chips around

the October 2012 launch of the 512MB version.

RPF also apparently felt the need to expand its marketing scope to include non-charitable

industrial applications such as digital signage.

So the RPF set up a trading subsidiary, "Raspberry Pi (Trading) Limited",

Company number: 08207441, on September 10, 2012.

Eben was appointed a director of the subsidiary on Jan 07, 2013,

coinciding with the termination of his directorship of RPF, per RES01

dated December 18, 2012.

http://bizzy.co.uk/uk/08207441/raspberry-pi-trading  (see "documents" tab)

The subsidiary's directors are listed here:

https://www.duedil.com/company/08207441/raspberry-pi-trading-limited/people

with only Eben and Jack Lang in common with the original six RPF directors.

A 30 April 2013 news report explained:

Eben Upton, executive director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation said: “On the basis of guidance received from our professional advisers, we've separated the existing trading activities of the Foundation into a wholly-owned trading subsidiary, Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd, while the Foundation continues to pursue its original educational mission. This is apparently considered best practice for charities which conduct significant commercial activity – charity shops would be a good example.”

http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/hi-tech/15343-california-boost-as-raspberry-pi-takes-new-commercial-view

Maybe now we know what Pete Lomas was hinting at on Sept 25, 2012, when he wrote:

What we learned is that you have to sell out (a little) to sell (a lot).

And it may shed some new light on Eben's comments:

I don't believe that there was any way that we could have done this as a commercial venture. I mean, you see the number of sales and it's easy to think, “Wow, I wish I could make some profit out of that!”. You're generating all this value and none of it is going to your wallet. But in practice actually it's fantastic.

http://www.techspot.com/article/531-eben-upton-interview/

Excellent bit of research, coder27. I was looking forward to seeing RPi's 2012 numbers on the Charity Commission's website, but now they've started carving things up those numbers won't be quite so meaningful on their own...