Pi without borders

While we haven’t run an event calendar in The MagPi for a while now, this, and other recent tech events and online interactions, have reminded me just how much Raspberry Pi tech is used around the world, and how differently it can be used as well.

Cultural differences

As you may know, American English and British English have some differences. Not only in terms of just outright different words, but also in how they’re used – Matt Richardson, Community Engagement Manager at Raspberry Pi, informs us that, for robots that are remote-controlled and not autonomous, it’s much more proper to call them rovers in the US. Which makes sense!

While visiting Maker Faire Tokyo a few years back, the style of projects on display was very different than those in the UK or US. Here, folks’ creativity was on show, with weird and wonderful robots and contraptions that wouldn’t look out of place in a Rube Goldberg machine. In comparison, Westerners seemed to be making stuff with practicality and usefulness in mind.

Neither way is better, however it would be cool to see people here experiment with more artistic projects just for the fun of it.

Global community

Through the (questionable) magic of social media, we’ve managed to stay connected to international makers over the last few years, hearing about robot competitions in Puerto Rico, coding classrooms, seeing mini laptops from Hong Kong, and Astro Pi entries from all over the world.

We love to showcase projects from readers and the wider community here in The MagPi, so never feel like you can’t send something our way! Even if English isn’t your first language, we can make something look (and read) great if you’ve got a cool build to show off.

Hopefully, as we get to more events throughout the world, and more events run in general, we’ll be able to meet more of you and get your excellent projects in the magazine – wherever you are.