Published as a “recipe” in the Critical Code Recipes collection, this piece documents a project in Mirzapur, India, where we sent laptops made of Raspberry Pis to young women- devices they could play with, reconfigure, and use to explore their interests.
The central challenge was demonstrating the tactility and adaptability of these open devices while competing with the familiarity of phones and laptops. The recipe focuses on one specific idea: letting the young women customise their device’s boot-up sound as a way to claim ownership over the technology. The process involves learning the device, basic sound editing with Audacity, and adapting Python scripts- a gateway into technical literacy that starts from personal expression.