At only $35, a Raspberry Pi might be a tempting addition to your makerspace or library. But what can it really do and can you make it work for your users?

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that only needs a screen, keyboard, and mouse. It can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video and can be used to teach programming.

One of the big draws of the Raspberry Pi is to learn programming. It can be used to learn to program Ruby, Python, Scratch, and even setup your own web server. Besides teaching resources, the Raspberry Pi website even has an Education Newsletter you can receive via email. Need inspiration? Check out what others have done on their make page.

We know that Minecraft is extremely popular. Check out our post about using Raspberry Pi to program in the Minecraft world!

Finally, here’s a short video about the device and getting setup: