Field Guide · organization

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.

Why it matters

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.

Sources

  1. Raspberry Pi Foundation — Wikipedia, for the charity’s history and mission. 

  2. Raspberry Pi — the Foundation’s official site. 

See also