What actually a raspberry pi is?

Raspberry is a credit sized single board computer system developed in the United Kingdom by the raspberry pi foundation. Initially, these pocket-sized computers were designed for the promotion of teaching computer science in developing countries so that people could easily afford it. Later, the original model became far more popular than anticipated selling outside its target market. Today it's being used by hobbyists, technocrats, and even in industries since it's not only a low-cost computational machine but also its designs and hardware are open source making it easy to fit industrial needs.

Things needed to get started with Raspberry pi

Like CPUs of a computer system raspberry pi has an operating system, video output, Ethernet port(excluding models A, A+, Zero, and 3), USB ports, and power input to power up the machine. Few models come with a built-in wifi card in them.

On the top of a raspberry pi there are several pin-like structures they are called General Purpose Input/Output pins(GPIO pins) they are used to send and receive digital and analog signals and the way to do that is with the help of programming through languages like python,c,c++ and many more. The below image is of model b+ pins

SO the things that we need to get started is a raspberry pi itself, an SD card with a supported operating system, USB based keyboard and mouse, and a monitor for video output. But if you don't have a monitor, keyboard, or mouse there are other ways.

Let us see how a raspberry pi can be used

1. Desktop computer

The inspiration for developing such a small size computer is to make learning possible at the school level. Raspberry pi can be used as a desktop for some basic computation and office work. It's an affordable solution for the one who is interested in computer science or getting started with it.

2. Making projects

It's the widest use-case of a raspberry pi. Since it's a small, low-cost, programmable machine it's a go-to choice for anyone who is making projects. Some famous projects are Home automation systems, weather monitoring systems, Home security systems, automated irrigation systems and many more.

3. Hacking

Yes you read that right, Raspberry pi can be used for hacking purposes. Raspberry pi can be booted with Kali Linux which is a favorable operating system for hackers and its small size and portability makes it even better. The Pi's small size and ability to do some powerful things have also seen it featured in shows like Mr. Robot, where it's used to remotely hack into the climate control system of a data center. In April 2018, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered that a hacker was able to gain access to one of its "major mission systems" by targeting an unauthorized Raspberry Pi computer that was attached to the JPL network, The Raspberry Pi hack went undetected for 10 months, according to the NASA Office of Inspector General, and the perpetrator stole 500 MB of data from 23 files.

4. Robotics

With its ability to work with various sensors it is used to build robots and humanoids and they are programmed to do various tasks. Line following robots, Humanoids, Object detecting robots is some of the projects.

5. Internet of Things(IoT)

With the ability of a raspberry pi to connect with the internet helps in making a thing smart and allows communication between the devices with the help of the internet. Some IoT projects that can be done with pi are a smart home system, IoT industry automation, face recognition door lock system, etc.

Conclusion

There are many more things that raspberry pi is capable of doing so explore the true potential of this tiny, affordable, and powerful machine.