Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In love with the BBC micro:bit

markshroyer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 82 posts

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#51

Post by askvictor »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
ntoll wrote: post #39

Yay... great to see MicroPython on the micro:bit getting some love. In case you're interested, here are the docs for MicroPython on the board -- you can do a remarkable amount on such a small device: https://microbit-micropython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ (Caveat - I was involved in the MicroPython side of things. So good to see the other dev environments represented in the comments here.) Hurrah! :-)

Thanks to MicroPython adoption rate, I see it as the BASIC of IoT. :) Nice work.

Unfortunately there is a lack of easy to use tooling... Mu for the microbit is nice, but other platforms don't have an easy to use editor and file uploader

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#53

Post by askvictor »

My (non techie) partner has used these very successfully with older students who have dropped out of or disengaged with traditional schooling; particularly for numeracy outcomes, but more generally as well.

It's important to not forget their potential as a general educational tool, rather than just something to teach coding with. Have a read of Mindstorms by Papert if you are interested in this space.

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#54

Post by mynameisvlad »

primitivesuave wrote: post #23

My organization is working with the BBC Microbit Foundation to make these devices more popular in the US education system. I find the Microbit to be far less intimidating than the Arduino, since the IDE is entirely web based and students can copy a program onto it just as they would copy a file onto an external USB drive. One feature that kills it in the classroom is the Microbit's built-in 5 x 5 LED matrix, which me…

I'm volunteering with a school in the Puget Sound as part of TEALS and would love to get in touch about augmenting some of our curriculum with these bad boys (especially since the block language is similar to Snap, which is used in Intro CS). Do you have an email I can reach you at?

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#55

Post by dhon_ »

jaustin wrote: post #24

I work for the micro:bit Foundation, who have taken ownership of the project on from the BBC - great to see some love on HN for this! There's more at http://microbit.org but for the Hacker News audience you're probably interested in http://tech.microbit.org though ;). There's even a reference design to make your own microbit-derived designs. We'll be hiring tech people again soon, so if you want to come and help us t…

What did you change to improve ESD resilience?

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#56

Post by mietek »

OJFord wrote: post #12
mietek wrote: post #5

16 KB of memory? The “64” in “Commodore 64”, the name of a computer introduced in 1982, stands for 64 KB of memory. (A 128 KB version followed 3 years later.) It is now 35 years since 1982…

Instead of lambasting it for a low number, perhaps you could tell us what you'd have a child do in 17KB that they couldn't do in 16KB? It's an educational device, and that education involves learning to write pieces of code for which industry users may well prefer to pull in large libraries. I'd be surprised if the target audience - 12-13 year olds - use all that; those that have a passion for it will of course end u…

Quoting from the fine article, which you clearly have not read:

“Finally, the micro:bit’s 16 kB of RAM is quite limiting, at least when using the MicroPython runtime. While writing a moderate-size program I managed to repeatedly exhaust the SoC’s memory, resulting in difficult to debug MemoryExceptions. I can easily imagine intermediate users running up against and being confused by this limitation, and would welcome a version of the micro:bit with double the RAM.”

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#57

Post by mietek »

Sanddancer wrote: post #46
mietek wrote: post #5

16 KB of memory? The “64” in “Commodore 64”, the name of a computer introduced in 1982, stands for 64 KB of memory. (A 128 KB version followed 3 years later.) It is now 35 years since 1982…

The Commodore 64 was also $595 when it was introduced, which, adjusted for inflation, is about $1500. The microbit, on the other hand, is about $20. The microbit also has 256k of flash memory -- in comparison, the 170k 1541 floppy drive cost $400, or $1000 in today's dollars. One also needs to keep in mind that programs can run directly from that flash memory, so that 16k is only really a limitation if you're using p…

As zitterbewegung writes elsewhere in this thread, “there is a Bluetooth radio on the microbit but the runtime was 12k and there wasn't enough space to load micropython and Bluetooth at the same time.”

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#58

Post by deboboy »

Introduced it to my University of Washington students. It's a primitive but good tool for prototyping. Students don't have to fuss with installing an IDE, learning a new language, etc. Thank you TouchDevelop team.

We have some wacky ideas for microbit:microbit mesh experiments.

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#59

Post by viubui »

I must be missing something. Why would a kid get excited about making a 5x5 array of LEDs to blink when they can easily program a ~2000x1000 array of lights (their laptop/phone/tablet screen) using their browser ?

Re: In love with the BBC micro:bit

#60

Post by linker3000 »

With regards to worries about shorting the connector with crocodile clips on the large I/O pads - the adjacent contacts are 'guard' ones connected to the same place so there's no problem.

I have been working with the micro:bit in my role as a volunteer STEM ambassador almost since it became available and it's a fun tool. My main STEM angles are computing and electronic engineering and initially it was very hard to get good info on the I/O functionality (coding and electronic), but things have come on in leaps and bounds, notably with the micropython guys, and I have concentrated on developing some fun 'advanced expansion' projects, such as a loud 3V audio amplifier (powered from the micro:bit), sound detector and a 5 band audio 'spectrum analyser'. Currently I am working on an alarm clock radio with the micro:bit being a plug-in add on controller (via its buttons and bluetooth). The LED matrix is good for a quick win with visuals, but adding a small OLED display makes a world of difference to what you can do - it would have been really cool if one of the small 0.91" OLED panels was baked in to the micro:bit.

The biggest challenge I originally found was the lack of a focal point for teachers, volunteers and developers to share ideas - I subscribe to many educational forums and groups and the most active I have found is the micropython mailing list (but if anyone knows of others let me know) and there seemed to be little encouragement or management from the official micro:bit side to centralise and promote the community spirit, plus there was a huge delay in getting out the full technical specs and schematics - and boy was it was impossible to get hold of an edge connector for months - so there was a lot of poking and prodding needed to work things out; very kindly some of the tech guys from the companys involved in micro:bit distribution and add-on kits were extremely generous at sharing what they had found out in the early days, especially about the quirky way the LED matrix is wired and driven. A bit more oversight from the project originators in the early days would have really helped.

PS: Totally agree about the RAM - 16K is just a tad tight and 32K would have been a better size.

Post reply on HN