University Looking to Update Old Hardware

No worries. Apology accepted. I know what it's like when the caffine has left your system and it's the end of a long day. I think even something as simple as a micro or an Arduino could easily impliment a simple boolean expression with if statements and the learning curve is less steep than even a Pi and certainly easier than a CPLD or FPGA. What we may end up doing is giving them the code to set something up (Pi, micro, FPGA, whatever) and more introduce them to something and give them a tour of what they will learn in more depth in a later class. Not entirely sure, but I appreciate your input.