In case you haven't heard of the Raspberry Pi, it's a tiny, tiny card with a bit of on board memory and a couple of slots for memory and USB devices. At just $25, it's become a great device for anyone who wants to dabble in the basics of coding and writing programs. It's become a great educational tool for young IT students and tinkerers looking to gain some practical, useful knowledge about the way computers work.

To that end, the BBC note that the Pi's creators have launched The Summer Programming Contest for young coders. The foundation is offering a grand prize of $1000 and five $200 runners-up cheques to the judges' favourite programs.

Here's the challenge: "The aim of the contest is simply to produce a software Application, which runs on the Raspberry Pi computer and which impresses the Judges. Each Entry consists of an Entry Form and an archive file containing all source code, binaries and data for the Application. To enter, visit www.raspberrypi.org on or after 4 August 2012; complete an Entry Form with the required information and submit along with your archive file."

Once it's launched, entrants will have eight weeks to polish off their programs. There are two age categories, 13 and under, and 14 to 18. If it goes well, the Pi's creators want to launch weekly competitions. The Pi, and competitions like this, could be just the incentives needed to encourage the next generation of great game makers. The Pi has plenty of potential once you get to grips with a coding language. Here's a video that's been rewritten to work as a tiny, portable SNES (thanks, Wired ).