CrowPi2 Coding Kits for Raspberry Pi 4, Fits Raspberry Pi Laptop, Programming Kit for Professional, Kids, Adult - Deluxe Kit

Kids love it, but they will need adult's help. An adult will need to have some prior experience with coding/electronics or need to play with the kit themselves before assisting the kids. The projects are fun, and generally well developed.The company provides great support. We had a missing component and one that failed but they were sent replacements really fast.

I love this product. It has been fun for the whole family. From junior developers to game enthusiasts. This system provides the tools you need to focus on development. I love this and would recommend for anyone with a STEM curious family.

The provided microSD card contained a corrupted Raspberry PI OS image. It would lock-up the OS when I tried to use the included app to install recommended software. I tried doing it manually from the bash shell but it just gave strange errors and would not find or install any OS updates. Eventually, after a few reboots the OS image and/or the SD card became corrupted or failed and it will not boot.I checked with the CrowPi website but there is no way provided to download a new image that includes their added software and tools or to request a new card. It would seem reasonable to provide the means to do that. I can certainly create a new Raspberry PI image on my own, but it will not have their custom software for all the learning exercises.I am awaiting a response from Crow Pi support, but I have the feeling I will be returning this entire kit for a refund.

Tutorials only show up after creating a login. Tutorials are buggy, copy-paste on tutorial screen is broken, and there are many grammatical errors in the tutorial text. The hardware is interesting, and with better tutorials, would be a great learning tool.

With a name like "Crow-" Pi, this is literally an early bird for a Christmas present. It's like Science Fair's 500-In-1 electronic project lab stealthily hidden in a laptop!

The kit was complete and easy to get started with, the directions are excellent. The grandson was able to immediately almost play Minecraft. And the next day he was using the coding to do an animation sequence. Amazing.

I have the original Crowpi and am getting started with it, a bit late...but life sets the pace. I am really impressed with the way Elecrow has laid the system out and made using it so easy. I didn't think anyone could outdo the Crowpi, but boy was I wrong! Elecrow released the Crowpi2 and it takes ease of use to a whole new level. I have spent some time on their website reading about this new learning environment and I was tempted to take the plunge. The original Crowpi comes in a metal briefcase with a 7" touchscreen bolted to the inside of the lid so that when the lid is open the screen is aimed right at you. The circuit board in the bottom of the case is neatly arranged and everything is accessible. The Crowpi2 comes in a case that looks for the world like a laptop computer. The wireless keyboard is held in place by magnets and easily removed when you want to do experiments with the components inside. With the keyboard removed it looks almost like the original Crowpi, but with more components to experiment with. The screen is larger (11.6") and higher def than the screen with the original Crowpi; however, it is not a touchscreen...if that matters. Touchscreens are great on smartphones, but I think they are of limited use for a laptop or desktop computer where a mouse makes much more sense. Removing and installing the Raspberry Pi is much easier with the Crowpi2 than with the original Crowpi, and an operating system comes preinstalled on the sd card so you can get right to business running the Pi. The laptop configuration is what intrigues me the most and it is almost the tipping point to make me want to abandon my Crowpi and go for the newer model. However, there is one small detail that is keeping me from making the jump. The Crowpi2, being a laptop sort of, does not come with a battery. I should say it doesn't come with a battery anymore...because it used to. But as of February they stopped including the battery. Now when have you ever seen a laptop that didn't come with a battery? I think that at the price point this thing is selling for a battery could have been included. No..."should" have been included. So, there you have it. A great idea that is one small detail away from being a great product. I would love to have one, but the battery issue sticks in my craw. Maybe I will reconsider in the future.6-29-2021:Well, it seems as if Elecrow isn't the only company not shipping batteries with their products. Evidently international shipping regulations have made it very difficult (impossible?) to ship batteries, so the decision by Elecrow was made necessary for compliance. Meanwhile I have decided to take the plunge and invest in a Crowpi2, but it won't be purchased from a normal seller; rather I managed to find a brand new still in the box unit that was purchased during the kickstarter phase and it comes with a battery. The owner put it in his closet and just recently decided to sell it because he wasn't going to use it. How lucky was that? So, once I have posession of the Crowpi2 I will be able to give you my impressions of how well it serves its purposes as a laptop and also a development machine. Meanwhile I am actively adding to my review of the original Crowpi, so I can compare the two units and enumerate their strengths and weaknesses. I actually am not expecting any great weaknesses from either, but time will tell.7-2-2021I am expecting my Crowpi2 to arrive today and am getting anxious. I have been in touch with the good folks at Elecrow and am moving my rating up to five stars even before unboxing the machine. They gave me their reasons for removing the power bank from the newer kits and I can see it was a decision they did not relish. As I have begun working my way through some of the functions of my original Crowpi I know I will be even more impressed with the new one! Stay tuned as I put together an overview of the new unit.7-10-2021After unboxing the Crowpi2 Deluxe kit I examined it closely. The unit is made of plastic rather than the more traditional laptop materials, but the plastic does not have a flimsy feel...it feels good and makes the unit lighter than it would otherwise be. Remember that this is a learning/development tool that is designed to be portable so that it can be used just about anywhere, and not an every-day replacement for your laptop. The slide out drawer that was made to hold a power bank (battery) is pretty small and will not hold much in the way of components nor will it hold a very large power bank, so you will need to carry most of your supplies in a pocket of the carry case. The kit ships with a carry case included, but most people will likely opt for a more traditional carry case - one that they probably already have on hand. I like that the unit has a built-in power switch and a volume control that make it feel like a genuine laptop. I also like that the Raspberry Pi OS is a very Windows-like desktop environment (probably Mac-like, too, but I have no personal experience to base that on) making it easy to get around for a Linux newbie. The Crowpi2 Deluxe kit comes with a Raspberry Pi 4 that has 8GB of memory, enough to run a wider range of OS packages than just the stock Raspberry Pi OS. At 11.6" the display screen is a good size match for the rest of the unit, which is the size of a number of compact laptops. The keyboard is one of the really great points of this unit. It is held in place securely by magnets and yet is very easy to remove when you want access to the development board underneath. With they keyboard in place nobody would imagine that this unit is anything other than a Pi laptop; unless, of course, that person is familiar with the Crowpi2. With the keyboard removed the whole world of Crowpi2 development is uncovered, just waiting for you to experiment. Be prepared for the inevitable questions and comments from onlookers when you remove the keyboard in public. Most of them will be at a total loss as to what they see. This was a real work of genius. You can type in all the code you need to operate a circuit and then remove the keyboard, and voila! It is ready for testing. Or, you can remove the keyboard and type in the code with the development board uncovered and the keyboard on your lap. The choice is yours as the keyboard is wireless. In the design of the original Crowpi the Raspberry Pi was mounted with the top of the board oriented up (makes sense to have the top up), but that means that the sd card slot is at the bottom and not accessible unless the Pi is removed. In the case of the Crowpi2 that same orientation is used...but, the Pi is now accessed via a door on the bottom of the unit and when the door is opened you are faced with the bottom of the Pi and the sd card slot is right there in front of you. No more removing and reinstalling screws when you want to change sd cards. So much easier! One thing hasn't changed from the original Crowpi: the ease of prototyping and experimenting. So many devices are permanently installed and connected that you can experiment by simply writing and running the code without the need of jumper wires, etc. Of course not everything is on the board, so the use of jumpers is still necessary for some circuits. But, this is a huge upgrade from a bag full of wires, resistors, components, breadboards, that all have to be assembled by hand every time you want to build even a simple circuit. Both Crowpi and Crowpi2 make electronics and robotics experimenting fun again. If something like this had been available back when I was a kid and I had been lucky enough to own one I would have been a happy camper! So be ready...once you buy this for your own use the kids are going to raid your party and you will be forced to share it with them. You have been warned.Is this kit worth the price? Having bought both the original and this one I can tell you that from my perspective it is definitely worth it. But this is a decision you will need to make yourself. If you have children who are involved in STEM training at school and you want them to have something at home to help them with their schoolwork, then I think this would be high on your list. The old axiom of school being all about the three R's, Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic has been upgraded to the four R's today, Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, and Robotics. Your children are probably building robots at school and entering them into competitions. Or, you may want to experiment on your own and are looking for a good way to do it. Either this or the original Crowpi would be my choice.

so before y'all come at me about "try this, try that": I already have. The bluetooth is not working, possibly its an issue with the USB connections. The keyboard nor mouse will function with the pc, I tried every connect option I've found including the one that provided a link in the question section for this amazon product, the one on the github and everywhere else. I did unplug the dongle and plug it directly into my pc and both mouse and keyboard work fine without any reconnect BT or anything else so the dongle has no issues, its the raspberry pi/usb that having issues. I've also tried utilizing other keyboard and mouse on the crowpi2 and nothing. The crowpi2 also boots up with a login that requires a password(which seems unusual considering everyone else "first boot" videos seem to go straight to a desktop/not require password) but this part is also very irrelevant at this point becasue like i said, keyboard nor mouse will work with the crowpi(but work on other pc's) so theres no way to see if its a blank password or if was previously used. the bag it box it came in seems brand new, the bag did seem to be re-taped and not completely sealed as all the other pieces were. again, ive tried every avenue of connecting both mouth and keyboard with no avail. I've also tried utilizing another BT that I KNOW WORKS and the keyboard & mouse that use that dongle without issues, but still wont work with the crowpi2 system that ive recieved.