As the phenomenon that is Raspberry Pi celebrates its first birthday, element14 is today launching “Raspberry Pi Month” with a series of initiatives to celebrate the outstanding success of the microcomputer.
Raspberry Pi made its European debut on the element14 stand at Embedded World 2012. To celebrate an extraordinary year for the category defining ARM based microcomputer, element14 presented key innovators behind Raspberry Pi, Co-Founder Pete Lomas, and ecosystem developer and PiFace designer Dr Andrew Robinson with the Innovation Award as voted for by the element14 Community at the end of last year. A giant Raspberry Pi birthday cake was also handed over, with visitors to the event being able to get their own “Slice of Pi”.
The success of the Raspberry Pi and the related accessories has been phenomenal. When the Model B board launched in 2012 there were 500,000 hits on the element14 website every 15 minutes with 600 orders, pre-orders or hits on the site every second. These stats and others relating to the ‘Life of a Raspberry Pi’ can be seen in the attached infographic.
As part of Raspberry Pi month element14 will also be asking people to vote for their favourite project using the microcomputer and accessories. ‘MyPi’ will highlight ten of the top projects that will be promoted via the community and members will be asked to discuss and select their favourite as well as put forward their own outstanding projects.
Throughout March various roadtests of the PiFace and Gertboard will be taking place on the element14 Community and for those new to the accessories a PiFace and Gertboard webinar will take place on 20th March.
Claire Doyle, Global Head of Raspberry Pi at element14, said: “When we launched Raspberry Pi a year ago who would have believed the phenomenal response this micro computer would have generated. Since we displayed it, exclusively at Embedded World 2012 element14 has been right at the forefront of technology through all the new accessory launches, the PiView, the WiPi, the 512mb Model B board to name a few. It has been a fantastic year and one we have been privileged to be a part of. The activities arranged for Raspberry Pi month show our ongoing commitment to the Foundation and all the customers that have created ingenious projects with their boards.”
With over 9 million views of the Raspberry Pi group on the element14 Community the success of the micro-computer is clear for everyone to see. To join the conversation, go to http://www.element14.com/raspberrypi.
Computing enthusiasts can expect to see a lot more from Raspberry Pi in 2013 and you can find out more about the minicomputer at our businesses around the world – Newark element14 in North America, Farnell element14 in Europe and element14 in Asia Pacific. The Raspberry Pi is also available through CPC in the UK and MCM in the United States.