CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Laptop Doubles as Electronics Learning Kit (Crowdfunding)

CrowPi portable learning kit for Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and Pi Zero boards was launched in 2018. It comes with a 7″ display, several sensors, buttons, a breadboard, and more all packed in a small suitcase.

Elecrow has now started a new crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to fund the second generation portable electronics learning kit: CrowPi2 which looks much more like a laptop than a suitcase found in the first model thanks to a large display, and a detachable keyboard placed on top of the electronic prototyping/learning area. It’s also more powerful thanks to the latest Raspberry Pi 4 SBC.

CrowPi2 specifications:

• Compatible Raspberry Pi boards – Raspberry Pi 3B/B+, Raspberry Pi 4
• Display – 11.6-inch 1920×1080 IPS screen
• Camera – 2MP camera
• Audio – Built-in microphone and stereo speaker; 3.5mm audio jack
• Keyboard – 2.4GHz detachable wireless keyboard (QWERTY only) with touchpad
• Sensors and Modules under the keyboard:
  • Displays – 4-digit Segment LCD, LCD1602 matrix display, and 8×8 RGB matrix
  • Sensors – DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, tilt sensor, PIR sensor with an adjustment screw, sound sensor with an adjustment screw, light sensor, ultrasonic sensor
  • Motor Control – 9g servo interface and stepper motor interface
  • User input – Joystick, 4×4 button matrix, touch sensor
  • Wireless – RC522 RFID induction module
  • Expansion
    • 40-pin GPIO header replicating RPi I/O header, and LEDs for each signal
    • GPIO, ADC, I2C, and UART expansion interface
    • Breadboard area
  • Misc – Relay, cooling fan, buzzer, vibration motor,
• Misc – Volume and screen brightness adjustment, internal storage box (e.g. for power bank, components, etc…)
• Power Supply – 12V DC via power barrel jack, or 5V via Micro USB port (probably not recommended)
• Dimensions – 291 x 190 x 46 mm
• Weight – 1.3 kg

CrowPi2 basically supports any operating system that can run on Raspberry Pi 3/4 boards including Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian), Ubuntu, CentOS, Windows 10 IoT, Arch Linux Arm, OpenWrt, Lakka, RecalBox, LibreELEC, and more.

When the keyboard is attached to the laptop shell, CrowPi2 could be used as a standard laptop for typical desktop tasks, as well as learn Python programming, Scratch visual programming, AI, and Minecraft coding. If you want to learn or teach electronics, remove the keyboard and access all the sensors and modules described above.

The super early bird reward – limited to 200 sets – starts at about $140 for CrowPi2 with basic sensors and components (excluding Raspberry Pi), a 32GB MicroSD card, a 12V power supply, Micro and standard HDMI connectors, an IR remote control, an IR receiver, a stepper motor, a 9G servo, a DC motor with mini fan, a  screwdriver, an RFID card & tag, a user manual, a components pack, a moisture sensor, and a Micro SD card reader. They also offer kits with a Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with 4GB RAM, and even more external modules and accessories starting at $240. Shipping varies depending on the destination country starting at around $6 to Hong Kong up to $66 to countries in South America. Backers should start getting their rewards shipped in August 2020.

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