For the past few weeks here in the lab my fellow RAs, Travis White and Sabrina Schoch, and I have been waiting for computer parts we ordered to arrive from the US. Finally, after a long wait and just a little stress, they have arrived and we were able to put them together to build three desktops computers. At the heart of each computer is a Raspberry Pi , a small single-board device. The Pis were just boards and we plugged everything in to them–the screen, the power, everything in to this tiny little board. We also purchased small DIY boxes that we built around each board to protect it from damage. Building the cases, which seemed very simple on YouTube, was actually very difficult because the boards would not fit inside. In the end we took out the one of the nine layers that made up the case in order to get the Pis to fit. The team is now experimenting with Rasbian, a Linux-based operating system, which is taking some getting used to because everyone in the lab is used to using Windows or OSX—but we are up to the challenge!
Here are some pictures of our process:
