Inside the Classroom: Special Projects in Tiny Computing

Students create speculative science fiction stories and build computers using Raspberry Pi devices in a cyberpunk immersion with Assistant Professor Lee Tusman.


Dressed in costumes and sharing complex backstories of evil corporations, alternate realities, and anti-virus injections, students in Special Projects in Tiny Computing presented their group projects using tiny computers—a Raspberry Pi—using Linux and inspired by cyberpunk culture.

Students in the New Media Class Special Projects in Tiny Computing present their projects.

“Students  learn about cyberpunk culture and portrayals in popular media as they learn to build small computers and customized operating systems and software using Raspberry Pi computers,” says Lee Tusman, Assistant Professor of New Media and Computer Science.

“They created their own ‘cyberdecks,’ speculative alternative computing devices, along with writing a backstory (lore) and creating costumes for characters that would use their custom cyberdeck.”

Lee Tusman helps two students with their projects.

A Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that runs the free, open source LINUX operating system and has input and output pins that allow users to connect electronic components for physical computing.*


*From open source.com