Adventures In Raspberry Pi Paperback – January 7, 2014

The book is well written and I love Philbin's youtube work. I heard her mention the book, immediately came to Amazon to purchase it...held up only to the fact that I saw a 2nd edition is soon to be released. I waited a couple weeks & still no 2nd edition, so I pulled the trigger.I now wish that I had used those couple weeks to check it out from the library.I feel like my biggest issue is the fact that there were many terms that were technical enough that my 10 year old couldn't read the book herself. While I normally would accept any retort concerning the targeted age group, in this case I cannot accept any notion of my 10 year old not being able to read this...she has read books since she was 2 years old, she tested at an 8th grade reading level in Kindergarten, and could have tested higher but the elementary schools are only capable of testing at the middle school level. The girl can read...and definitely at the level of an 11 year old.My second issue was concerning the claims of 9 awesome projects. My count is really only 5 projects, if you really stretch your definition of project, I can accept a count of 7 projects. But there is in no way 9 projects in this book. And that's not including my thoughts on the word awesome since it's too subjective a subject to really broach. But if you asked me about the count of awesome projects, it's more like 2-3 awesome projects for a kid in the target demographic of 11-15 years old.I felt like there was a lot of time wasted in setup, the first two 'projects' are devoted to getting to know the pi and they were essentially completely covered in a 10 minute youtube video.Other than that, like I said, it was well written, I love the level of detail, and the path that it begins young children down. For that I can't give it a negative review, but to that end, the book is over priced in my opinion.

This is a great attempt to reach a multi-age audience. I used this book with freshman high school age students in introductory course. We were all learning together, and this provided a strong framework of practical lessons to get started.With the proliferation of online tutorials and ideas, the paper book version was our solid 'goto'.Generally it is fun and very well organized. Screenshots, photos, tips and software commands are embedded in the running text and instructions.The text is upbeat and friendly!

I like the way this book is organized and takes the young learner through a variety of different projects that can be done on the Raspberry Pi. It's amazingly versatile. It also works well for us that one of the early sections includes Pi work on Scratch, which we're already somewhat familiar with, so it's a good door for us.

I teach computers to 3rd-8th graders. As our STEM effort, we do Scratch and (of course) Minecraft. This book caught my eye because it unites these with a cool, inexpensive hardware component (the Pi) as well as introductory Python and Turtle programming. Kids at this level can benefit most from a smorgasbord of brief introductory activities that hold their interest, rather than an in-depth programming or robotics course. This book is a great collection of entrees for just that purpose.

There is no reason that this book should not have included the proper code indentation for the Python programs exercises. Luckily, I started my daughter off with other beginner python books, so she was able to figure out most of her syntax errors, regarding improper indentation. However, if your child is new to programming, an introduction to programming without an example of proper indentation will absolutely drive kids and adults with no programming experience, crazy! Even beginner Python language books for adults include the proper examples for code block indentation within the text. Maybe this is only relevant to the kindle version of the book, but I can envision a lot of new kids and adults alike skipping this important portion out of frustration. Terrible!

I follow the author on YouTube and was excited to see she published a book. The book is an engaging read - which is rare for a technical book. The book also includes several projects from simple to complex so you can build your skill level and design your own projects using your new skills. I'm looking forward to the sequel!

A great place to start the adventure. I got this book to start learning about coding with my 6 yo son. We have been gathering everything and will start running the projects quite soon. Nice descriptions and clear protocols to create different modules with your Raspberry Pi.

Good first book for the Raspberry PI even though it only covers up to the Raspberry Pi 2.

I am so pleased with this book, which I purchased as a guide to get me into the Raspberry Pi and to provide resources for a co-curricular computing activity in my school. I have been working through the book since the summer and have found it so clear, with everything explained in sufficient detail for me to get started, before moving on to related activities in class. So far, the students and I have followed instructions from the book to set up the Pi, run Scratch and Python, program Minecraft, connect LEDs to the GPIO ports and made them blink. Next, I need to work out how to use Sonic Pi in class. When I have been dealing with one student, others have picked up the book and followed the instructions on their Pi, leading to memorable events, such as one student logged in to another student's Minecraft world, watching huge cubes of lava materialising in response to instructions written in Python. The book primarily describes the Model B, Rev 2 board, where I have also purchased B+ boards, which have 40 pins on the GPIO port, rather than 26. This is not a problem since the first 26 pins are in common, but some web searching is needed to obtain the additional up-to-date information that is not in the book when you come to the section about GPIO. Some of the software, for example Minecraft, also now comes pre-installed on the newer NOOBS release, so it does not need to be installed and the version of Sonic Pi on the newer version of NOOBS is version 2, rather than version 1 described in the book, so some of the instructions are slightly different. However, the help files on Sonic Pi are excellent and the Raspberry Pi community is active, with good web resources available at the click of a mouse. The Raspberry Pi is such a fantastic resource for secondary school computer science teaching and this book is an excellent introduction, particularly for the model B, but also for the B+, if you are prepared to do a little bit of additional research.

This is an excellent introduction to the world of Pi. With this in hand, you will soon have your pi up and running. Not only that, but you (or your child) will be programming in Scratch and Python. Not only that, but they will also learn how to program the free Minecraft app, which has got to be about the best way of teaching a child to code.There are other projects, too, but we haven't got past Minecraft yet. I say we, because our daughter is younger than the targetted age group of 11-16, so I give her a hand and make sure she doesn't get put off when it gets complicated.Once you have this book, you will probably want to get other books which go into more detail on Scratch etc, but this is an excellent starting point. And when she does outgrow it, I can turn the Pi into a Mame console.

General ObservationsAdventures in Raspberry Pi is a 144 page book written to encourage teenagers into real computing by an experienced teacher, Carrie Anne Philbin.This book makes wonderful use of lots of graphics and screenshots. It’s very nicely laid out with plenty of colour and white space. The pages are all visually interesting and the text clearly explains things in a friendly manner.But more than that. By being easy to follow and fun to read, the learning will sneak up on you. By breaking everything up into logical bites and taking them one at a time, fundamental programming techniques and terminology are being introduced, almost by stealth. You can see Carrie Anne’s classroom experience in this approach.Playful, But Not Dumbed DownBy making it playful, rather than tedious, children are given the chance to find out that learning their way around Linux and programming can be rather good fun, limited only by their imagination.At the same time, it doesn’t hide or protect the reader from the fact that instructions have to be correctly followed if they are to work. (A very important lesson in itself.)Complete Introduction For TeensThe book is a complete introductory package for teens who are new to the Raspberry Pi. It leads you all the way from connecting the Pi together and flashing an SD card, and finishes with a hardware project – a rather cool MP3 jukebox. On the way it takes in…Connecting up the PiPutting NOOBS on an SD cardLinux basicsProgramming in Scratch, including creating a graphical adventure gamePython fundamentals, by way of a text-based adventure gameUsing Minecraft Pi Edition to create things with PythonMaking computer music with Sonic PiControlling LEDs and using buttons and marshmallows as inputs to control a gameMP3 Jukebox with LCD screen and button controlsThe Bad Bits?Nothing much to moan about, really. Impressively few typos.I’d say the base font is smaller than my 44-year-old eyes would like, but it’s aimed at young people, so that’s probably not much of an issue for the target audience. And I did manage to read it OK, I just prefer font sizes to be at least 12 points. Other Wiley books are the same.Overall?I’ve been teasing Carrie Anne on Twitter about “marking your homework”, since before publication. Finally, the results are in…It’s got to be an A*, without a doubt.It’s a wonderful book. It’s educational and fun, which beautifully sums up the essence of Raspberry Pi.

I bought my son (age 10) this book after we bought him a Raspberry Pi for Christmas, since he is interested in learning to write his own games.This book has proved to be perfect! It takes you through the setup etc. like many other books do - but the great thing about this book is that the 'adventures' (sort of mini-projects) are aimed at children and are things that my son actually wanted to try.Within about an hour he (with some help from me) had created an animation with a little character that he could control with the arrow keys, and make it 'go through a portal into a cave'.My son went from being slightly daunted by his Raspberry Pi, to saying it was his best present ever - and he can't wait to do more adventures from this book.Worth every penny :-)

There are a lot of Raspberry Pi books out there but if you are just getting started then this is the one you should buy. And even if you aren't a beginner there's lots to be learned from these pages.There's a clear progression, the projects are interesting and fun and the book is well structured and clearly laid out. A brilliant companion to the Pi.