Also known as: Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK-based charity, founded in 2009, that created the Raspberry Pi single-board computer to make computing affordable and accessible for education.1
Overview
The Foundation was started by a group including Eben Upton, who were concerned that young people were arriving at university with less hands-on computing experience than earlier generations. Their answer was a low-cost, credit-card-sized computer that could be bought for tens of dollars and freely tinkered with.2
The first Raspberry Pi shipped in 2012 and sold far beyond the classroom, becoming a staple for hobbyists, makers, and industry. Engineering and sales now run through a trading subsidiary (Raspberry Pi Ltd), while the charity continues educational programs and curriculum work. The boards are built around Broadcom systems-on-chip.
The Raspberry Pi range
From one educational board, the line has grown to cover several form factors:
| Model | What it is |
|---|---|
| Model B | The flagship full-size board with ports |
| Zero | A tiny, cheaper cut-down board |
| Compute Module | A board-to-embed version for products |
| Pico | An RP2040 microcontroller board (not a full computer) |
Where it fits
The Raspberry Pi turned the cheap, capable single-board computer into a mainstream tool. For a project like GopherTrunk, a Pi by the antenna makes a practical capture node — small, low-power, and inexpensive enough to deploy several — and the Foundation’s mission is why that hardware exists at the price it does. A Compute Module can carry the same idea into a purpose-built receiver enclosure.
Sources
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Raspberry Pi Foundation — Wikipedia, for the charity’s history and mission. ↩
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Raspberry Pi — the Foundation’s official site. ↩