open sauce

Giving away 480 Raspberry Pis was harder than I expected

I gave away 480 Raspberry Pi Picos at Open Sauce last weekend, and ran into a number of challenges doing so. All of them self-inflicted, of course. I didn't want to just hand them out like candy—or, well... that's exactly what I did:

Raspberry PIZ Dispenser with little Star Wars PEZ Dispenser

My initial plan was to build a backpack mount for a full 480-Pico reel (they sell them in bulk like that, for pick-n-place machines). However, there was a major flaw with that design.

Constraints

I needed to get through TSA, so I could fly to San Francisco. Driving was out of the question, as my wife is almost full-term and I could not leave her for more than a week in the middle of summer, when the kids have about 15 events per week!

A full reel would require a knife or scissors, and I didn't want to check the bag whatever I built was in.