Raspberry Pi unboxing & setup

My first impression is good. I love the design on this packaging. Thank you Pimoroni for a speedy delivery!

Wow it is so small! What can I say, I really wasn’t expecting it to be this miniscule. So much functionality is built into a this 3×2 inch micro computer board. How lucky we are to be able to access this incredible feat of engineering at such a minimal cost. From this photo you can see the:

• Quad-core 64-bit chip which runs @ 1.4GHz
• 40 GPIO pins (where I will later connect external devices)
• 4 USB 2.0 ports (one connects to the keyboard, the other to the mouse)
• HDMI port (connects to the monitor)
• Micro USB input
• 3.5mm jack for audio/video output
• MicroSD and adapter (MicroSD inserts into Pi and stores Raspbian OS)
• DSI port (display port)
• CSI port (for connecting Pi camera)
• Ethernet port

The hardest part of setting up was assembling the cover. It is comprised of 4 plastic slips, 2 of which keep the motherboard snug in place while the 2 white ones surround the exterior. When building this I thought I could always be a watchmaker if a career in tech doesn’t work out. Tightening these screws are fidgety work so be careful not to lose them on the floor!

After figuring out where the various ports were on the Raspberry Pi and plugging in the 2.5A power source, the monitor powered to life and a number of pop-up windows guided me through the really straight forward process of installation to connect to the internet, download the Raspbian software onto the microSD and configure the settings to account for my current time and language preferences.

Seeing my Pi plugged in to the peripherals and running is absolutely mind-blowing.  It’s a full desktop computer running on a mobile phone charger!

I found it funny that when I configured the keyboard setting to ‘U.S’ the wastebasket icon description changed to ‘trash’. It comes with a few pre-loaded packages such as Wolfram and Mathematica which I am excited to explore further. For now, I will be kept busy researching my first project to make with Raspberry Pi as there are tonnes of suggestions to wade through online. I’m realising that to build a project I’m going to have to further invest in some rudimentary electronics such as a breadboard, resistors, capacitors, ribbon cable etc. The Hello World! equivalent in electronics is to blink an LED light. This will be my first Pi milestone. Now to get to work!