They have also never heard the wonderful sounds old shortwave radios make as they are tuned onto s station. Not one student in my high school class had even heard of a vacuum tube. (I teach embedded computing, no Arduino allowed.)
What’s wrong with Arduino?
I think it is very cool... and cheap.
Not so thrilled with Raspberry-pi though. IO seems harder.
Oh, and I agree with our regarding the wonderful sounds of old shortwave radios.
About 25 years ago, I acquired a very nice table-top radio. There was a grad-student lounge area where people would leave unwanted items when they moved out of an office, and one day there was a nice radio sitting there, playing music, so I picked it up and still have it (sounds great). What happened, I’m sure, is that some youngster turned it on, decided it didn’t work, and walked off without waiting for the tubes to warm up.