Kids Build Pill Dispenser To Win Raspberry Pi Award 29
judgecorp writes "The first Raspberry Pi Awards have picked the best projects built by schoolchildren using the Raspberry Pi. The winners included a team of 8 to 11 year olds, who built a door-answering machine for elderly or disabled people, and a team of 12 to 16 year olds, who made an automated pill dispenser for forgetful patients. Other categories included adults, who built a wireless home power consumption system."
Better links (Score:5, Informative)
That link sucks. Just brief news coverage.
Here are some better references:
http://www.paconsulting.com/events/the-pa-raspberry-pi-competition-winners-announced/ [paconsulting.com]
http://www.paconsulting.com/introducing-pas-media-site/releases/a-pill-dispenser-and-an-air-quality-monitor-all-from-a-25-raspberry-pi-21-march-2013/ [paconsulting.com]
Actual link to a project (Score:2, Informative)
Here's the website of the team that built the electric monitor. This is what I care about - not some blurb saying that they won...
http://unop.co.uk/dev/raspberry-pi-electricity-monitor/
Wireless power consumption system? (Score:5, Funny)
A wireless device that consumes power? What an original invention!
Re: (Score:1)
They can expect a call from Apple's lawyers soon, there are at least a dozen patents violated from that.
I think you a word (Score:5, Insightful)
Other categories included adults, who built a wireless home power consumption system."
That's nothing, I've built a whole ton of power consumption systems in my time!
Of course, what the adult winners built was a home power consumption MONITORING system, which is a tiny bit different.
What! No porn, cats, or warez? (Score:3)
Seriously, these are some good ideas. The young always seem to be open thinkers. Helping save energy, help the old, and the disabled. That's what tech should be for first and foremost. Possibly helping the starving as well.
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Re:What! No porn, cats, or warez? (Score:5, Insightful)
But is it about being environmentally friendly, or saving a few bucks on the power bill?
Does it matter if the end result is the same?
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i know right? i feel so bad now. here they are helping people.. ..and my project is adding an anti-squirrel/annoying neighbor pellet gun turret to an octocopter.
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Dubious (Score:2)
I've taught kids electronics and programming using the pi and they are mostly thick as two short planks. Yes, the kids might have assembled these projects - but I find it very unlikely they actually designed them, or did more than a very little programming.
Re:Dubious (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, the "thickness" distribution would have to be very odd not to account for some exceptions.
In my opinion, kids aren't much dumber than adults, they just have assimilated less stuff. That can be bad (less useful knowledge) or good (less prejudices).
But in any case, have you tried teaching average adults to program? Because you might start finding difficult to believe that anyone can program ;)
Interresting trend (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it interresting that the younger the contestants were, the more practically usable their inventions were.
The Source (Score:1)
Where is the Sourcecode ? Are they teaching closed-source at British Schools ?
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Why would you need a Raspberry Pi to build a Pez dispenser?
Congratulations on the ingenuity of the winners!
It is more like a Pez dispenser which will only dispense candy N times a day, where N is programmable through a website, and will alert the user with an alarm and flashing light when the dispenser is ready to dispense another sweet. And even better, will alert a family member via email if the sweet has not been removed from the machine within a reasonable time frame.
Suspended yet? (Score:5, Funny)
Joke post (Score:1)
I was about to be a troll, but... (Score:1)
I think the kids got a taste of what product development is like, as much as you can get in a few weeks in a pre-college school scenario anyway. But real product development is hard, and the reasons why it is hard are also hard to teach. You have to be able to get out and talk to people who would be future users of your product, and distill down to something that would actually be of service to them, an
Lawsuits ensue (Score:2)
Can't wait to see the first news story about a kid taking a pill from "Grandpa's automated pill dispenser" and dying from it. Countdown to suits starts now.
.... and then.... (Score:2)
And then they were suspended from school for bringing a pill dispenser, which could contain drugs, onto school property.
No drugs were found in the dispenser, but school officials are defending their decision, along with the decision to suspend their classmate when, upon hearing the news, made a gun with his fingers and said "they got em good".
Guns and drugs are banned on school property.