When I was getting started with the whole maker movement, I was torn between choosing the Arduino or the Raspberry Pi. They were the boards that I had heard most about and seen some pretty awesome projects done with them (in my research I came across the Beaglebone but that is a board for another day.)
There were various “Raspberry Pi vs Arduino” blog posts and even YouTube videos, and the TL;DR version of it all is: the Raspberry Pi is more of a microprocessor or mini computer; and the Arduino is more of a microcontroller. I won’t go into detail about their differences but you can start here to read on the same and google for more info.
At first I was more inclined to the Raspberry Pi and all, but I found it to be a little too computer sciencey for my taste and choose to go with the, what I would call bare bones, Arduino since I thought it might be more inline with my needs and a good place to start. Also it didn’t help that the Raspberry Pi was twice the price of the Arduino: KES 6500 for the former and KES 3000 for the latter.
So the first part of my maker journey will be chronicling my exploration of the Arduino, getting to see what this board can do and trying to come up with my own awesome projects. Then when I feel like leveling up, and I get a little more money , I’ll move on to the Raspberry Pi.
So if you were to start out with either the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino, which would you choose?
Published by Okelo
Okelo is an Electrical Engineering graduate who is fascinated by various aspects of digital media
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