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Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

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Re: Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

#11

Post by kriro »

I saw a micro:bit keynote at a big conference somewhat recently. Overall I have to say I'm not all that impressed with the strategic decisions. There were some reasons for rolling their own but they could have partnered with existing alternatives (the keynote struck me as a tad bit too "nationalistic" for lack of a better word...basically "we must do it ourselves because...REMEMBER ACORN GLORY DAYS").

Now it seems Germany is also rolling their own...meh. At least the machines will get into the hands of kids eventually and the software is open source which I like a lot. But I mean why not just ship the micro:bit (or other existing alternatives)?

And I agree with the blog post...if you must roll your own you might as well go the complete open hardware route.

tl;dr: Too much not invented here going on with these projects.

Edit: There's a reasoning for not choosing the micro:bit provided on the calliope website: no speaker, rgb light or microphone + the arrangement is strange and students would short circuit it too often; for not chosing arduino/pi etc.: too complex/needs too much extra stuff and is thus impractical in school use

Re: Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

#12

Post by willvarfar »

msravi wrote: post #2

It's somewhat surprising to me that the "block editor" thing is so popular in these beginner kits. My son (almost 11) was introduced to it at school[1] and did not find it intuitive at all. We then got an Arduino and started to write some simple programs, and he took to it right off the bat. The Arduino programming platform is simple enough to get a 10-year old started off and scales so well to "professional" project…

There are two things to untangle here:

1) Yes, agree that "blocks" editors are not terribly useful. I brought an Arduino redbot for my daughters (10 and 8) and after a couple of failed attempts at scratch-like programming, they actually found the C code immediately easier. This is so unintuitive! Ideas?

2) that the micro:bit is worse than the arduino; I don't think block programming or sourcecode has any bearing on the choice of board. The micro:bit seems a bit more powerful than an arduino, but not actually powerful enough to impress me.

I really think that a much more powerful Raspberry-PI-style board but with decent robot handling would be infinitely better to getting kids hooked.

It was a year ago now but my own disappointment with the redbot: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/136598180858/wher...

Re: Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

#17

Post by msravi »

willvarfar wrote: post #12
msravi wrote: post #2

It's somewhat surprising to me that the "block editor" thing is so popular in these beginner kits. My son (almost 11) was introduced to it at school[1] and did not find it intuitive at all. We then got an Arduino and started to write some simple programs, and he took to it right off the bat. The Arduino programming platform is simple enough to get a 10-year old started off and scales so well to "professional" project…

There are two things to untangle here: 1) Yes, agree that "blocks" editors are not terribly useful. I brought an Arduino redbot for my daughters (10 and 8) and after a couple of failed attempts at scratch-like programming, they actually found the C code immediately easier. This is so unintuitive! Ideas? 2) that the micro:bit is worse than the arduino; I don't think block programming or sourcecode has any bearing on t…

Agreed. The good thing with the Arduino is that there is no OS to navigate - there are just 2 simple functions (setup and loop) where you put whatever you want to in, with some very simple intuitive functions (digitalWrite, analogWrite, ...). Compare that with what you need to do with the Pi for bare metal[1].

[1] http://www.valvers.com/open-software/raspberry-pi/step01-bar...

Re: Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

#18

Post by willvarfar »

msravi wrote: post #17
willvarfar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two things to untangle here: 1) Yes, agree that "blocks" editors are not terribly useful. I brought an Arduino redbot for my daughters (10 and 8) and after a couple of failed attempts at scratch-like programming, they actually found the C code immediately easier. This is so unintuitive! Ideas? 2) that the micro:bit is worse than the arduino; I don't think block programming or sourcecode has any bearing on t…

Agreed. The good thing with the Arduino is that there is no OS to navigate - there are just 2 simple functions (setup and loop) where you put whatever you want to in, with some very simple intuitive functions (digitalWrite, analogWrite, ...). Compare that with what you need to do with the Pi for bare metal[1]. [1] http://www.valvers.com/open-software/raspberry-pi/step01-bar...

A nice arduino-like "very simple intuitive functions" API ought be perfectly possible on a raspberry PI, and there ought be no need for bare metal programming of the PI to make that happen.

When I blogged about how hard it was for me to find Raspberry PI robots in my country there was a discussion about it on proggit https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3zf04e/where_a...

The crux seemed to be that nobody is doing real time kernels on the raspberry PI, and this is just a lack of software not an unsuitability of the hardware.

I guess this just underlines that people have a £5 Zero and aren't scratching a "kids could learn to program by controlling robots with this!" itch?

Re: Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

#19

Post by mcv »

msravi wrote: post #2

It's somewhat surprising to me that the "block editor" thing is so popular in these beginner kits. My son (almost 11) was introduced to it at school[1] and did not find it intuitive at all. We then got an Arduino and started to write some simple programs, and he took to it right off the bat. The Arduino programming platform is simple enough to get a 10-year old started off and scales so well to "professional" project…

I think 11 is already too late for those blocks. I did some lessons with Blockly [0] in my son's class last years (kids of 6 and 7), and that worked fine for the oldest/smartest kids, though it was still a bit too hard for some. I plan to do it again this year (ages 7-9) to see how that goes.

But after that, I think it's time for some Ruby or Python. I did Basic at that age.

[0] https://blockly-games.appspot.com/

Re: Germans React to UK’s micro:bit

#20

Post by digi_owl »

msravi wrote: post #2

It's somewhat surprising to me that the "block editor" thing is so popular in these beginner kits. My son (almost 11) was introduced to it at school[1] and did not find it intuitive at all. We then got an Arduino and started to write some simple programs, and he took to it right off the bat. The Arduino programming platform is simple enough to get a 10-year old started off and scales so well to "professional" project…

I wonder how well kids take to tech depending on what their parents or siblings are involved with.
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