Raspberry Pi competition to encourage young coders, $1000 prize on offer

In case you haven't heard of the Raspberry Pi, it's a tiny, tiny card with a bit of on board memory and a couple of slots for memory and USB devices. At just $25, it's become a great device for anyone who wants to dabble in the basics of coding and writing programs. It's become a great educational tool for young IT students and tinkerers looking to gain some practical, useful knowledge about the way computers work.

Here's the challenge: "The aim of the contest is simply to produce a software Application, which runs on the Raspberry Pi computer and which impresses the Judges. Each Entry consists of an Entry Form and an archive file containing all source code, binaries and data for the Application. To enter, visit www.raspberrypi.org on or after 4 August 2012; complete an Entry Form with the required information and submit along with your archive file."

Once it's launched, entrants will have eight weeks to polish off their programs. There are two age categories, 13 and under, and 14 to 18. If it goes well, the Pi's creators want to launch weekly competitions. The Pi, and competitions like this, could be just the incentives needed to encourage the next generation of great game makers. The Pi has plenty of potential once you get to grips with a coding language. Here's a video that's been rewritten to work as a tiny, portable SNES (thanks, Wired ).

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.