Raspberry Jams around the world celebrate Raspberry Pi’s 8th birthday
Happy birthday to us: tomorrow marks the eighth birthday of the Raspberry Pi computer!
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- Eighth birthday?
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- Or second?
On 29 February 2012 we launched our very first $35 credit card-sized computer, Raspberry Pi 1 Model B. Since then, we’ve sold over 30 million Raspberry Pi computers worldwide. People all over the world (and beyond!) use them to learn, teach, and make cool stuff; industrial customers embed Raspberry Pi devices in their own products or use them to monitor and control factory processes. As an early birthday present, yesterday we cut the price of the 2GB RAM Raspberry Pi 4 Model B from $45 to $35: now you can buy a no-compromises desktop PC for the same price as Raspberry Pi 1 in 2012.
Don’t try this at home: you may damage your Raspberry Pi or teeth.
A global community of Raspberry Jams
Throughout the last eight years, a passionate community of enthusiasts has championed the use of Raspberry Pi, and our library of free resources, by hosting Raspberry Jams: events where people of all ages come together to learn about digital making in a fun, friendly, and inclusive environment.
To celebrate Raspberry Pi’s in style, Raspberry Jam community members around the world are hosting special birthday-themed events during the whole month from 15 February to 15 March.
Our special thanks to The Pi Hut for shipping our special birthday packs to these Jams all over the world!
The contents of the packs we sent to Raspberry Jams that registered events during our birthday month. Thanks for the photo go to Andy Melder, who runs Southend and Chelmsford Raspberry Jams.
20 Birthday Jams have already taken place in Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, India, the UK, and the US. In total, there are at least 118 Birthday Jam events across 35 countries on 6 continents this year! (We’re determined to reach Antarctica one day soon.)
Jams can take many forms, from talks and workshops based around the Raspberry Pi computer, to project showcases and hackathons. Here is a selection of photos from some of the birthday events community members have run over the last fortnight:
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- ILUG-D in Delhi…
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- …celebrating with cake…
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- …and cat!
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- Varna Raspberry Jam celebrated…
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- …with a Raspberry Pi photo booth…
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- …a lot of digital making…
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- …and maybe some sweet guitar music?
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- Sheffield Raspberry Jam…
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- …celebrating with breadboards…
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- …and robots!
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- All the robots!
Shoutout to Tokyo Raspberry Jam
We’d like to give a special mention to Masafumi Ohta and our friends at Tokyo Raspberry Jam, who have had to postpone their Birthday Jam due to coronavirus-related safety restrictions currently in place across Japan.
The Birthday Jam in Tokyo in 2018
The whole team at the Foundation sends their best wishes to everyone who is affected by the virus!
You can still join in the celebrations
Jam makers are running birthday events up to and including 15 March, so check out the Raspberry Jam world map to find your nearest Birthday Jam!
Chelmsford Raspberry Jam, celebrating Raspberry Pi’s eighth birthday with multiple generations
If you’d like to host your own Jam, we also have free resources to help you get started and free starter projects made especially for Jam events.
It’s really simple to register your Birthday Jam: just fill in the Raspberry Jam submission form, including a valid event information URL linking to a webpage with more information about your event. (This is an excellent example of a Jam event listing.)
As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask us via jam@raspberrypi.org.
15 comments
Colin Tinker
Happy Birthday, but where did 8 years go? Keep up the good work all.
rpdom
Strictly speaking it is the Second birthday of the Raspberry Pi, there having been only one 29th of February between today and the original launch. :)
The big difference between now and then is that I’m not hammering the refresh button on my browser to try and buy one this time. :-)
George Dodds
8 years on, I remember that was a rather entertaining morning & a very long day.
Great to see how things have evolved over that time period.
AndrewS
Happy Birthday Raspberry Pi!
Dougie Lawson
Happy birthday to all leaplings.
Thanks for getting me interested in electronics again in the last eight years.
Stewart Watkiss
Happy Birthday.
What an amazing time. The Raspberry Pi just keeps getting better and better.
Rod
Definitely second birthday, but eight years old (in my humble opinion).
Noctuam
Happy 8th/2th Birthday Raspberry Pi. It’s good to see RPi having evolved from a small 256MB RAM computer to a still small but powerful 1-4GB RAM computer.
Nomdeplume
Raspberry Pi Zero W is out of stock everywhere, as is the Pi Zero which leads me to wonder if there is an imminent announcement for the next generation of the Pi Zero coming for the birthday?
If there isn’t a new Pi Zero/Zero W, then why is it out of stock, I doubt there has been a sudden surge in demand? I need to replace some of mine after they sustained water damage. (The recent storms in the UK defeated my ‘waterproof’ enclosures).
Liz Upton
They’re out of stock because sales figures keep going up – they’re very popular. We keep increasing production, but there’s a significant lag (and now a significant backlog).
Stuart Morgan
Thanks for that explanation Liz and Happy Birthday to the Pi/Foundation.
The fact that the Pi Zero is consistently increasing in popularity is good news for the Raspberry Pi foundation, though disappointing for me and others who are waiting on stock. Though it won’t help the stock situation in general, and is arguably unfair on others, maybe I need to buy extra and keep them in reserve as spares?
One suggestion would be to work with stockists to sell the black clip for the ribbon connector as I’ve found these to be very fragile and mechanically at least, the first thing to break or go missing, at which point if you want to connect a camera you’ve no choice but to buy a new Pi which seems wasteful. Alternatively, a 3D printable version for resin printers which can manage such small objects would be great!
Winkleink
Not sure if you’ve a 3D printer.
But this as a solution may work if the only need is to sort out the connector for the camera.
3D printed shim to insert.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3333189
Andrew Waite
Happy Birthday.
Can we now call the original Raspberry Pi-1 a ‘retro’ computer?
Kostis
https://m.imgur.com/r/reactiongifs/vztc6Bw
andy
haha that cake photo is brilliant! had me laughing!