Arduino or Raspberry Pi?

         


I frequently hold workshops for kids who want to learn both programming and computer hardware, for which I use the Raspberry Pi. I get a lot of questions surrounding the difference between Raspberry Pi and Arduino, and which one is better. Both are great in their own respects, but both are different and it all depends on what you want to use it for. The main difference is the Raspberry Pi is a microprocessor, while the Arduino is a microcontroller

Let's start by looking at what each one is separately:

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a small pocket-sized computer (a single board computer - SBC), and is much more general-purpose than the Arduino. Much like your computer at home, it runs using an operating system (In our case, Linux) and can run more complex applications. Anytime you're making something that needs more power, Raspberry Pi is your best bet. It is more close to a computer than to the Arduino.


Raspberry Pi would be your best bet if you were making the following:

- Complex Robotics
- Learning to hack
- Cameras/Video
- Graphic interfaces
- Complex equations

If you're looking for tutorials or projects that you can do with the Raspberry Pi, look out for future posts or go take a visit to the Raspberry Pi foundation blog.

Arduino





The Arduino (also known outside of the US/UK as Genuino) is bare bones compared to the Raspberry Pi, as it is an 8-bit microcontroller used to do simple functions over and over again. Something to note is that the Arduino does not have an operating system like the Raspberry Pi.


Examples of when you might use an Arduino are the following:

- Motors
- Simple robotics (Like a line-following robot)
- Sensors
- Character LCDs

For more projects or tutorials that you can do with the Arduino, check out this page from their website.

If you're still confused on which to get, there is a general rule of thumb that I've read on a few different sites: Describe your project in a simple sentence. If you can do so with one or two 'and's, get an Arduino. If you need more than two 'and's, get a Raspberry Pi.


If you have any questions, or ideas for a blog post you want written, please feel free to let me know!