Udemy Class Review: Raspberry Pi Bootcamp

The Raspberry Pi began life as a simple teaching instrument designed to make it easier for young minds to learn to program. Today that’s still the primary purpose of Raspberry Pi devices, but the product has also taken on a new life as a hobbyist mini computer. In these two capacities, it has been used to create numerous other devices from TV boxes to robots.

Course Review

Before diving into the course itself, I should mention that this course predominantly works with the Raspberry Pi 3. Due to the similarities between the various Raspberry Pi devices, however, most if not all of the lessons should be applicable to any model of the Raspberry Pi.

After giving you a brief overview of some of the many things you can learn to do with the Raspberry Pi, the lecturer dives straight into teaching you how to install Raspbian on an SD card for use with a Raspberry Pi. Raspbian is a Linux distribution that has been specifically configured for use on the Raspberry Pi. This is followed by instructions on how to connect the Raspberry Pi to a keyboard, mouse, and display, as well as a step by step guide on setting up the Raspbian software.

If you simply wish to use the Rasberry Pi as a computer for web browsing, multimedia consumption, and light gaming, then you can technically stop the course here. Later in the course there is a section dedicated to setting up the Raspberry Pi as a game system that you may also be interested in, but other than that there is little reason for you to continue the course.

If you plan to use the Raspberry Pi for other purposes beyond just as a media player and gaming device, however, then there is still a lot of useful information in the following lectures. Next up in the course is a lesson over the GPIO pins, which are used to connect various other devices.

Using the GPIO pins and a breadboard, the lecturer instructs you on how to use the GPIO to connect a simple LED. From here the lecturer teaches you how to control the LED using the GPIO pins, and he provides you with downloadable code files from GitHub to make this easier.

The following lectures dive into more detail with dedicated lessons on how to set up an Apache web server, control circuits connected to the Raspberry Pi from a web interface, and creating a Google Home clone.

Conclusion

Throughout these lectures, the information provided is delivered in a clear and easy to understand manner. I didn’t have a Raspberry Pi device on hand to follow along with the instructions given in the course, but using this material as a guide I’m quite certain that I would be able to with ease.

Realistically, this course just scratches the surface of what’s possible with the Raspberry Pi, but it feels well thought out. It focuses on hitting important topics and simple lessons that keep the course easy for everyone to follow. At the same time, after taking the course you will have a solid base for which to build upon as you continue to learn and grow your knowledge of using the Raspberry Pi. If you’ve been wanting to learn how to use a Raspberry Pi, then I’d highly recommend this course. Currently, you can get it from Udemy for $19.99.

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