Raspberry Pi goes to space

The Astro Pi Competition invites primary and secondary school children to submit ideas and write code for space experiments that can be done using the two credit card sized computers, with the ultimate aim to encourage interest in coding and spacecraft engineering among the younger generation. Speaking at the launch event, UK Space Agency CEO David Parker said: "Our project is a part of a much bigger challenge and that is to prepare young people for the challenges of the 21st century. "Most of the jobs that are foreseen to be created by the UK's booming space industry in the upcoming years won't be about designing and building spacecraft, they will be about using data, about making software to control space missions. The experience with the level of precision and accuracy the children will get when writing code for Raspberry Pi is exactly what one needs for success of any space mission." In the primary school age category, teams will be asked to devise and describe an original idea for an experiment or application which can be conducted on the Astro Pi by Peake during his mission. The two best submissions will get the opportunity to work with the Astro Pi team to interpret their ideas and the team at the Raspberry Pi Foundation will then code them ready for flight. In the secondary school age group, the competition will be run across three age categories, one for each of Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 . In the first phase, competitors can submit their ideas for experiments and applications. The best 50 submissions in each age category will win a Raspberry Pi computer and an Astro Pi board on which to code their idea. In phase two, all teams will develop code based on their original concept and two winning teams will be selected in each age category. The winning teams' code will be readied for flight by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and CGI. The Astro Pi competition will be officially launched in January, with the first teams selected in April 2015 ahead of Tim Peake's November launch.