Actually this was the much of the reason for the creation of the Raspberry Pi. Its creator, Eben Upton was a director of studies at Cambridge university and re

Actually this was the much of the reason for the creation of the Raspberry Pi. Its creator, Eben Upton was a director of studies at Cambridge university and realised that there were fewer CS applicants than in the past and that many of those that did apply knew far much less about computers and programming through there own "tinkering" than previously. He saw that this was due to modern computers being far more opaque than the systems he had used as a kid (like the BBC Micro). So he decided to build something to address that issue that was open enough to understand the workings and cheap enough that people wouldn't be discouraged from tinkering due to the risk of breaking it. It seems to have worked quite well...