Starter kit including Raspberry Pi 5, power supply, case, and cooling—everything needed to set up a capable single‑board computer.

CanaKit’s Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO has become my go-to recommendation when coworkers want to jump into Pi development without chasing parts. The bundle ships with the 8 GB Pi 5, 27 W USB-C PD supply, active-cooling case, pre-imaged 128 GB microSD, HDMI cables, and even a USB-C power switch—everything you need to boot into Raspberry Pi OS in minutes. The new active cooler is whisper quiet yet keeps the board under 65°C while I run Docker stacks or compile Rust projects, and the case exposes all headers so I can still hook up HATs. I appreciate that CanaKit includes a printed quick-start sheet plus a USB card reader for re-flashing the SD when I experiment with Ubuntu or Home Assistant. You’ll still want peripherals (keyboard, mouse, display), but as a one-box platform for tinkering with GPIO, Kubernetes, or retro emulation, it’s excellent.

Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO with Active Cooling

Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO

Elegoo’s V4.0 Arduino-based smart car kit bundles ultrasonic, IR, Bluetooth, and FPV Wi-Fi sensors with keyed wiring, a 2000mAh Li-ion pack, and step-by-step tutorials for hands-on robotics STEM projects.

We rebuilt the Elegoo V4.0 kit this summer and it’s still the quickest way to teach sensors plus Arduino basics. The new keyed wiring harness meant my kids could plug everything in without soldering, and the illustrated manual walks through each stage from chassis assembly to ultrasonic obstacle avoidance. After running the stock line-following demo we extended it with Bluetooth control via the Elegoo app and a custom MQTT sketch so it could stream distance readings back to my home lab. The included 2000mAh lithium pack powers roughly two hours of line tracking; we swapped to high-capacity cells for longer rover missions and filed the acrylic edges for comfort. For under sixty bucks you get motors with encoders, IR tracking, ultrasonic ranging, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi FPV, and an Arduino-compatible brain—perfect for a weekend STEM build.

Arduino-based robot car kit with ultrasonic, IR, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi FPV sensors. Keyed connectors eliminate soldering, perfect for STEM robotics projects.

Elegoo Smart Robot Car Kit with Arduino and Sensors

Elegoo Smart Robot Car Kit

Hand-picked coding tools and resources we actually use in production. Each item tested by developers, for developers. Find 2 products with detailed reviews, pro

Coding Products

Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit PRO

Elegoo Smart Robot Car Kit