4,000 Raspberry Pi PCs made a day, camera add-on due October

An update from the manufacturers of Raspberry Pi  says that no fewer than 4,000 of the £22 devices are being made a day to meet demand. And the first official add-on, a camera module, will be available by October, according to the founder of the foundation.

"It's going incredibly well," founder Eben Upton told the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones at the Raspberry Jam event in Cambridge. "We've had to ramp up to a point where we can build these at a rate of about 4,000 a day in order to meet demand. Even now there's still a backlog.

"There's some hope that at 4,000 a day we might start to work the backlog down. We're very hopeful we can get to the point where you can buy one of these and have it arrive the next day."

These impressive figures are just the beginning. The foundation has sold around 200,000 of the devices, and hopes to reach a million by the end of the year. Upton says that so far about half the orders have been for the UK, and he hopes to expand to the US.

Rather than launch another model of Raspberry Pi, the focus has been on improving the software. And it's made huge strides. Someone using the device today would see in some cases a "fourfold" improvement in performance compared to April, Upton said.

The first official add-on will be a camera module, as we reported previously. It'll have a 5-megapixel sensor, will cost about $20-25 (£13-16), and it'll be here in the next three months. Plug it in, and your Pi becomes a stills and video camera.

It's not been an easy start, with the launch beset by delays, but it's great to see the Pi thriving. Upton conceded though that there's a long way until the miniature computer achieves the original aim: to change how computer science is taught in schools.

"There's a lot of work to do before these are in the hands of every kid," he said.

The full interview is embedded below. Have you got yourself a Raspberry Pi? Let me know what you think of it in the comments, or on our Facebook page.