[jhickner]

From what I can tell it adds to the $35 pi:

- a case w/integrated speaker

- a keyboard/trackpad combo

- a wifi dongle

- nice manual

That's not too bad for the added $65. The mini keyboard looks nicer than the ~$20 FAVI ones[1] I usually use.

At first I thought they'd figured out a way to add a screen. That would be great. But it looks like you need to supply your own.

I work with students in Uganda and it's hard to beat what you get from a $200 netbook. Much faster processor than a pi, plus the screen is integrated. You can't do GPIO stuff like you can with a pi though, so there are trade-offs. Twice the price of this, too.

Looks like a great project to me!

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/FE01-BL-Wireless-Keyboard-Mouse-Touchp...

[tomca32]

I work for an NGO that has IT programs in Rwanda. I would love to see some package similar to this that would somehow integrate a screen with Pi. I just love Pi as a concept and I really want to include it in our programs.

As it stands now, we're in the same boat as you. Second hand laptops / netbooks are a far cheaper and simpler solution for us than getting PIs and figuring out what to do with screens, keyboards, etc...

[DanBC]

You (and parent commenter, and others) should get together and have a website for "This is the stuff we need, and why we need it".

You'd have a suggestion of a package of RPi, keyboard, screen, etc. You'd give suggestions for what would be good, and what to avoid. You give a total cost, and the amount you can provide to that. You then ask people to donate.

You maybe put the faces of children on your request.

LIKE WATSI BUT FOR TECH.

[voltagex_]

Sounds like we could lean on the OLPC guys for that a little bit, at least in the research stages.

Kickstarter+Watsi+OLPC+Kiva = ?

[slezyr]

You can easy buy screen for raspberry pi just type "raspberry pi screen" in ebay. But they aren't cheap $60 min. and 8" maximum

[ipodize]

Just wondering, how do you get those netbooks to Uganda, and what do the students do with them?

[tomca32]

I can't speak for him, but since he didn't answer, I'll tell you what we do in Rwanda.

We educate homeless illiterate kids. In Rwanda, getting your way around a computer is a respected skill and none of those kids have ever touched a computer before. We are trying to give them basic computer skills such as: finding your way online, e-mail usage, searching, file management...there is a ton of simple things like that. We all take them for granted because we use computers every day of our lives.

Imagine that you're illiterate and you see this shiny thing that looks like a magic box filled with random symbols. You heard about it before, you heard older men say that it's really powerful and that everybody respects individuals who can operate The Computer. So now you're in front of it. You touched the keyboard for the first time. It's filled with weird symbols, and this shinny thing has weird unearthly colors and glyphs that you cannot make sense of. It's unknown and above all, really frightening.

After a couple of months, when their literacy becomes "good enough" and when they can figure out how to do basic computer tasks on their own (or figure out a solution from online sources) we seek funding to send them to boarding school so they get off the streets.

This is a difficult transition for those kids, they completely lack self-respect and will be surrounded with kids from rich families that have had a massive advantage over them. But now, they consider themselves a Computer User. A person that can figure out the powerful machine, so their feeling of self-worth rises dramatically and they fare much, much better in the new school environment.

And that's it. Nothing really innovative, just teaching homeless street kids some computer skills so they can feel better about themselves and find their way in school.

[venomsnake]

Play games, have fun, use them as aides in study, as a diary/calendars, some basic tinkering skills, with ad-hoc wifi even micro networks for voice and chat - that is off the top of my head. You will be surprised how little computing power and stable internet you need to be a full digital citizen of the world.

A phone line, 100mhz pentium and 8mb of RAM did it for me in 1998 :)