• Question: most of you want to use the money for raspery pies, why?

    Asked by Issac Newton to Anna, George, Jodi, Rob, Stefan on 10 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Harvey T, plasmadragon101, Reggae Shark, RT.
    • Photo: Anna Scaife

      Anna Scaife answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I didn’t say that I wanted to use the prize money for Raspberry Pis, but I do think they’re very cool.

      Compact computers like the Raspberry Pi are so useful – they’re powerful and they’re tiny. Someone at my university made a super-computer out of them, along with help from his son (aged 6) who built a support structure for all the Raspberry Pi boards out of lego (http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/features/raspberry_pi_supercomputer.shtml).

      You can do this with almost anything – one of the telescopes I work on is using a whole load of similar tiny computers called Tegra boards (these are used inside tablets like iPads) to make a supercomputer for the telescope data processing.

      Another friend of mine made a super-computer out of lots of Playstations to process telescope data – or at least that’s what he said they were for…

    • Photo: George Ryall

      George Ryall answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I might also use some of it for arduinos (http://www.arduino.cc/). They are both really small, and relativly cheap , computers which are still capable of being useful. As such they are great for taking along to outreach events and introducing students to basic programming concepts and building cool projects.

    • Photo: Stefan Lines

      Stefan Lines answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Raspberry Pi’s (as you know) are really cheap. By providing a project involving Raspberry Pi’s I can reach the most people. Plus, despite their cost, they are amazing little machines that can be used for programming, data analysis, web browsing and I even used Minecraft on one…

      More specifically, they are really easy to connect external sensors too, which makes them perfect for a weather station.

    • Photo: Jodi Schneider

      Jodi Schneider answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Raspberry Pi’s are really small, cheap computers. But that’s not what I’d use the money for. My project is about helping doctors and pharmacists learn more about editing wikis — to get better info about medication into Wikipedia.

    • Photo: Rob Appleyard

      Rob Appleyard answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      If I win I don’t plan to use the money for Pis, but they are a brilliant building block for all kinds of interesting projects.

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