RAM Shortage Price Impact¶
Specification¶
The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 2: Choosing the Right Raspberry Pi Product.
Type: chart
**sim-id:** ram-shortage-price-impact<br/>
**Library:** Chart.js<br/>
**Status:** Specified
Learning objective: Students will *analyze* (Bloom L4: Analyze) how a component shortage changes hardware price tiers and per-unit bulk purchasing costs over time.
Chart type: Line chart with a toggle to a grouped bar chart view.
Purpose: Show how the 2025-2026 RAM shortage moved the price of a representative single-board computer (the Pi 5, 8GB configuration) over six quarters, and how bulk purchasing discounts partially offset the increase.
X-axis: Quarter (2025-Q1, 2025-Q2, 2025-Q3, 2025-Q4, 2026-Q1, 2026-Q2)
Y-axis: Approximate price in US dollars per unit (range 50-100)
Data series:
1. Single-unit price (raspberry `#C2185B` line): 60, 62, 71, 78, 82, 80
2. Bulk price per unit, 20+ units (circuit green `#2E7D32` line): 55, 57, 64, 70, 73, 71
Interactive elements: hovering any data point shows an exact dollar value and quarter in a tooltip. A `createCheckbox()`-style toggle switches between the line-chart view and a grouped bar view of the same data for students who find bars easier to compare directly. A dropdown lets the student pick which board's price history to display (Pi 5 8GB, Pi 500+), swapping the underlying dataset and redrawing.
Title: "Component Price Trends During the 2025-2026 RAM Shortage"
Annotation: a shaded vertical band across 2025-Q3 through 2025-Q4 labeled "Shortage peak" to draw attention to the steepest part of the increase.
Implementation: Chart.js line chart with a dataset-swap function triggered by the dropdown's `onchange` handler; canvas responsive via Chart.js's built-in `responsive: true` and `maintainAspectRatio: false` options inside a resizable container div.