At the 23. of August 2012, the University of Trier held the first Raspberry Pi Convention in Germany. It was a little, but awesome gig with about 30 IT Students and other interested people.
The main idea was to rise the awareness for the new microcomputer, called "Raspberry Pi" which combines an 700 MHz ARM Processor, 512 MB of RAM, Full HDMI Output, Audio, Ethernet and USB into an very small and affordable package (about 35 US Dollar). With this microcomputer, and its General Purpose Input and Outputs (GPIO), pupils can actually have a "hands-on" (in) physical computing. That means: Connecting software (i.e. Python, Perl, C programs) with the real world. For example: Controlling LEDs, driving motors or even react on buttons, attached to the GPIO port. Combining these possibilities into a small and affordable package started a big hype about this little computer, long before it was even available to the public.
But now, about half a year after the release, multiple versions and even more Operating Systems started to appear. Even a special modified Debian version, called Raspbian is ready to download. There are special versions of Arch Linux, Fedora, XBMC (a Multimedia Entertainment Center) and even a special version of OpenWRT is under development. During this meeting, the participants had the opportunity to listen to speaks (an Intro to the RaspPi, a Speech about Cross compiling and the I2C Bus System) and workshops (driving an LED, building the so called "Ladder Game", getting a Nokia 3310 LCD Display to work as Output). The overall response was great as well as the conference itself and I would wish to have additional meetings in the future.
On this occasion I also want to thank the organization of the PiAndMore, especially the Fachschaft of the University of Trier and Daniel Fett. You made an awesome job. Please keep it up.
Additional pictures and infos can be found on my JCTixx Project Twitter Account @JCTixx
Official Stuff: Facebook Event (https://www.facebook.com/events/330497597037314/), Twitter Account (@PiAndMore), Google Site (https://sites.google.com/site/piandmore/)
