Raspberry Pi Store opens in the UK

I think it looks awful. I wonder who it's supposed to appeal to - parents already educated on what the Pi is, or kids. The interesting bits are under glass! And if I were (say) 12, I wouldn't find those shelves of content interesting.

They ought to test that store style in a more 'normal' town/city, where there is less wealth, and there are no similar-looking Apple or Microsoft stores..

shabaz  wrote:

 

The interesting bits are under glass!

The counter in the middle has Raspberry Pi boards connected with an associated monitor and Keyboard and Mouse to interact with; kinda of like an Apple store.  There are also Pi's with what looks like 7" LED screens along the wall with Monitors and Keyboard and mice.   In the US at least, they would have to be sure to lock those boards down otherwise they will walk off.

From my experience, not all parents are educated on what a Pi is; few for that matter.  Many kids learn in the classroom and outside of those tech minded parents or maker types, the parents have no clue what the kids are learning.  Those were fun interactions at the local Maker Faire last year. 

As far as not looking like an Apple or Microsoft Store (who goes into them outside of accessing free wifi anyway), good, I'm glad they went that direction.  However, I was not impressed in the new Lego store that went up at a local mall though.

The Raspberry-red and white USB keyboards (with built-in USB hub to connect red & white mouse) look good and as far as I know haven't been available before or online. £18 in the shop apparently.

I've only casually observed externally Apple/Microsoft stores, to me it looked similar, appealing to the wealthier clientele, but my wording wasn't great. I shouldn't have assumed this is what those stores are like inside.

I love the US malls from what little I've seen. Especially the kids play areas, food courts for families etc.

In the UK, many large towns are unlikely to have the high-end stores, some are even lucky to have a book store. A store looking like above appeals to wealthy/middle-class families, who may already have a tech-savvy family member.

But I don't like the store idea anyway, because most families would have trouble spending the cost of a Pi on a child, and in that context, it's distasteful when the impression (unintentionally) that is left is that if you want to educate your child in technology, this is the stuff you have to buy : ( I wonder if their intent is to be more of a walk-in helpdesk, and occasionally sell Pi's perhaps.. the 'Pi Store' name is unfortunate.

Maker Faire's are mind-blowingly great, and something of interest for all ages it seems. They're a lot of fun.

I agree with you. For me (and many of us, I suppose), this video is something exciting, nice, clean... Ok, too clean! It's a bit aseptic if I can say. When I was young electronics was different but the most exciting shops were just where it was possible to ask exchange ideas and opinions, together with the staff and the other older and younger customers. It was a sort of meeting point. I remember passionate hobbyists and engineers arriving with their half working prototypes in plastic bags, sowing them on the bench and asking what was better...

I love - in an abstract and absolute vision point of view - this shop, it's fascinating but thinking to the target, and focusing the probably most important three ones, I think too something else:

1. A maker can visit it once, then come back to online forums (maybe element14, hopefully) and continue his projects ordering online
2. Industrial engineers involved in PI used for prototyping of embedded Linux devices (or similar) stay far away from this place, as well as he will buy stuff for himself
3. Kids, that if not trained by parents (already trained) that knows more or the same, they can find nothing better than what they see on the Internet, with the not secondary option to chat with the creators themselves. And - sic! - the interesting stuff is under glass. True that you can ask, but it's different than seeing it, touching it and - why not? - seeing it in action.

Is there a fourth target this shop scenario is oriented to?

Enrico

Regarding bringing stuff in, you've reminded me of the old Tandy/Radio Shacks.. my local one had a soldering bench and tools in their back office, the manager would let me use it after school to fix my projects.. From the video, the idea of Pi's switched on and ready to use is really good, so that kids can pick up some experiment ideas from around the store or elsewhere and try them out, so I hope they keep that part of it.

The US Fry's Electronics seems exciting too, they have themes like Inca temples or space age.. I know nothing about aesthetics, so I could be wrong about what appeals to kids.

Also I agree with your point about seeing things in action. Here my 8 and 5-year old nephews love going into the shed and seeing me do stuff, they get involved too like gluing wood to make a box for their toys, or watching me cut things.. that seeing in action or tactile suggestion makes a lot of sense.

"I wonder who it's supposed to appeal to - parents already educated on what the Pi is, or kids."

Perhaps it is an attempt to try and return to the 1980's retail store where the microcomputers were all laid out for hands-on use (as well as for purchase), but with help available from the in-store assistants if needed ? I recall John Menzies in the 80's being swamped by the local school children at lunchtimes, but in the background you would also see the assistants talking to the older generation about office type software which was starting to emerge on those platforms to handle the accounts as well as word-processing and start replacing the one-use document storage and retrieval typewriters.

It may also be aimed at those buying a copy of the Mag Pi magazine but also those wanting to be able to pick up some of the hardware to be able to work along with the cover article without the need to wait for mail order.

Or it may be an attempt at computer literacy in the older generations who may benefit from sales assistance and after-sales assistance. There has been a huge push recently on improving computer literacy in the schools, but there is still a huge short-fall in the older generations.

I'm sure that there will be a write-up about it in a forthcoming Mag Pi issue.   

shabaz  wrote:

 

, because most families would have trouble spending the cost of a Pi on a child,

I'm going to have to call you out on this one (in the nicest way possible) - I couldn't find any figures for distribution of Christmas present spending on children but I did find this:

Retailers predict £1.1bn will be spent on toys this Christmas, with an average of £105 spent on younger children.

and that was for 2016 : www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/2016/12/05/much-should-spend-christmas-presents-year/

This suggests to me that the PI is not outside the reach of most families (it would take more research to prove it, but I wonder where you got your data from.)

I couldn't find any large towns without book shops either - but I couldn't easily find relevant stats, so I used www.booksellers.org.uk/bookshopsearch.aspx and looked in places featuring on lists of poorest areas in UK.

In Jaywick you would need to travel 1.4 miles to WH Smith or 10 miles to Waterstones, but Jaywick is the "most deprived area" in the country and not that large.

I don't much love the R Pi org but it is pretty cheap (in a good way).

MK

" A store looking like above appeals to wealthy/middle-class families, who may already have a tech-savvy family member.

But I don't like the store idea anyway, because most families would have trouble spending the cost of a Pi on a child, and in that context, it's distasteful when the impression (unintentionally) that is left is that if you want to educate your child in technology, this is the stuff you have to buy "

Wasn't one of the original aims of the Raspberry Pi to produce a low cost affordable microcomputer for education though ? (However the additional peripherals quickly bump the price up somewhat.)

I recall back in the 1980's if you wanted to educate your child in technology in the UK, you were expected to have to pay out around £250 - £300 for the basic BBC micro, as that is what the schools would ultimately be using. More if you wanted the monitor to go with it ( to avoid losing access to the TV in the living room for hours on end ), the data recorder / disk drive and ultimately a dot matrix printer.

I was surprised recently at how much lower income parents still allow their children to spend throughout the year on apps stores for games.

beacon_dave  wrote: ...

 

I was surprised recently at how much lower income parents still allow their children to spend throughout the year on apps stores for games.

Because parents would rather eat a slice of bread less than see their kids getting isolated on playgrounds?