I like the idea - I can see some kind of path to free/open IoT devices and some standardisation. But ... is tehre some call home feature that says 'I have been turned on 5 times'?
Is this effective ?
I know I sound like an old moaner - it just is an important area - how do we measure if we are succeeding?
They’ve played with raspberry pi too, but Microbit is just so immediate. You write some code (or drag some blocks about), upload and it just works. It’s simple, understandable and quick. It’s also bridging the gap to learning some basic electronics too - building small circuits on a bread board with a mictrobit controller.
There’s something about microbit that just sparks my kids imagination - they’ve used it for school projects, homework assignments, they make little robots, figure out how they can automate tasks like watering their plants. All things they could do on Raspberry Pi of course, but still…
I see my kids playing about with mictrobits and I get a really sense of the same joy I had messing about with computers and electronics in the 1980s.
We recently worked with UK Scouts, and again used the micro:bit for many of our resources [2]. They're just easier devices to use, especially for some Scout leaders, who are not technically experienced.
[1] https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects?hardware%5B%5D=...
[2] https://www.scouts.org.uk/staged-badges/digital-maker/stage-...
I think of these devices as part of a long term, broad based parenting strategy aimed at opening mental access to a variety of human activity that includes but is not dominated by technology. The measures of this are very person-specific. It could be engagement, attainment, development, etc. I don't think there is a measure for all of "we."
As far as I'm aware there is no "call home feature" and I am very glad that there isn't as my goal is to clear many paths for the kids to choose from and not excessively encourage any particular one. If one were to have a measure, you can connect MakeCode to a GitHub account and track commits. If that became the measure, I'm sure the funnest kids would find a way to break it with negative 2000 lines of code [0] or the like.
Having tried Raspberry Pi, micro:bit and ESP8266 with my kids at various points I've found the micro:bit and MakeCode package to be at a sweet spot of simplicity and "batteries included." It contains many features like Bluetooth transfer of code that is brilliantly easy and enough sensors and lights to see something real without much yak shaving. There is a sufficient ecosystem of micro-bit slotted servo drivers and complete kits to fit different learning experiences.
If a person is interested in more sophisticated programming then a full Linux machine is great. If they want to sprinkle sensors everywhere then the Arduino universe is great. For someone who is curious but not committed then the micro:bit is an accessible path to develop a budding interest.
0. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li...
I really like Microbits for all sorts of reasons and they fill a very different place in the ecosystem to a Raspberry Pi. They are cheap and have a low entry threshold - I can get a kid doing interesting stuff on a Microbit in a matter of minutes, but there's still interesting potential if you want to go in an electronics direction with them. They are also fairly indestructible so you can let kids tinker with them more. There's not much you can do with a Raspberry Pi that you can't do on other computers without buying something like a SenseHAT or going down the electronics route. It's hard to do electronics with kids without close to one-to-one supervision.
I can see for older kids with tech-savvy parents who are willing to invest in electronics components etc. there are more possibilities with a Raspberry Pi and there is obviously lots of fun stuff you can do that you could never do with Microbits, but I definitely don't see them as direct competitors.
The other thing I will say is that I have noticed a bit of a personality thing too - some kids get super-excited by making the LEDs on a Microbit light up and so on and some really don't care. Different types of coding definitely appeal different to different children.
There's some info here https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/3/243028-the-bbc-microbi...
The total shipped number is now 5 million units. A significant part of these devices are in weekly use.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the authors of that article.
The new nRF52833 MCU [1] seems pretty capable and certainly inline with what is being used in industry for suitable applications (it's an Cortex-M4 64 MHz, 128 KB RAM, 512 KB flash, Bluetooth) but it doesn't seem to have hardware support for any ML-specific stuff that I could see.
Oh, and there has been a keming accident on one of the images that is a bit unfortunate, the word "MakeCode" looks a great deal like "MaleCode" which is perhaps not optimal in their context [2].
[1] https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wi...
[2] https://tech.microbit.org/docs/latest-revision/assets/blog/s...
There are also some DSP instructions, but it's only 2x16 bit mulitply and 4x8 bit saturating addition, so not so much use.
Any idea which Zigbee isn't mentioned in the press release, when it seems to be available in the new SoC - would it be problematic to make use of it in the micro:bit?
However I bet Nordic's examples for Zigbee on nRF52833 would work pretty much as-is (maybe just changing a few pin names) so you could get up and running pretty quickly.
Also, always good having another capable & affordable board show up on Zephyr IoT's supported boards list. Should hopefully happen fast! https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/boards/arm/bbc_microbi...
As frequently as Raspberry Pi devices are mentioned in comparison, there also mbed-style [1] inexpensive boards which support the "online compile and download to a virtual USB drive" model, and offer free RTOS support. (Perhaps these too -- or variants -- could hit a sweet spot in educational contexts which Raspberry Pi could miss.)
[1] https://os.mbed.com/platforms/
Edit: micro:bit is included there as an mbed-compatible device: https://os.mbed.com/platforms/Microbit/ . So presumably one can also practice RTOS for IoT on a micro:bit .
Headsup that the location of CODAL (the underlying layer that supports the micro:bit) is going to move today as part of going private to public so there will be times when that repo doesn't build (or at least, docs are out of sync with where the repos are) at some point during the day.
The MicroPython build has SoftDevice in it, including a Bluetooth bootloader so you can flash MicroPython programs using the mobile apps (betas being released today, too, see https://tech.microbit.org/software/beta/). However, we want to do the BLE API design in the open for how MicroPython will be a GAP Central or GAP Peripheral. Of course, as the code goes upstream it should also be possible to use other BLE stacks and existing MicroPython APIs, but for now our focus is on the classroom environment and getting consistency in experience on MicroPython and BLE flashing/update.
In the classroom we strongly expect people to continue using micro:bit Radio for user programs because of how easy it is to use and the way it allows micro:bits to communicate with each other.
The micro:bit radio is fantastic for most classroom cases, but I'm doing a bit of teaching around data, and micro:bits really struggle with that - between the lack of append mode for logging the data, and getting the data off them for analysis on a real computer, it's been pretty frustrating - hopefully this new version will help :)
You might also like some of the accessories people have made - I used these when strapping some micro:bits and RGB LEDs to samba drums and it worked great! http://www.kaise.com.tw/index.php?route=product/product&path...
We have also done a few projects using the Microsoft interface and the cutebot addition to have fun making a track following robot.
I could see voice control being a really cool feature for kids to have fun with.
I hope they offer some additional interfaces in Scratch to support some of these new features.
Does anyone have any idea when this new version will be for sale?
You could totally build a guitar tuner with the latest version
There is an ESP32-based microbit 'clone' called the BPi:bit (BPi = BananaPi) you can get off AliExpress that includes wifi (plus RGB LEDs), which might be worth a look
Programming this thing is amazingly simple. You use a browser based visual editor (at https://makecode.microbit.org/ ), and when finished you download the file and store it on the micro:bit just like storing a file on an USB drive. It will start automatically. Really simple so children see results as fast as possible.
Back in my day, you plugged in your 8 bit computer and it started on a BASIC prompt. It was all self contained.
Also, I had to walk uphill to school in the snow, both ways.
Inspire kids?
The micro:bit is extremely simple, just a few buttons, pins that can be used easily with crocodile clips, and a small grid of LEDs that makes it easy to draw primitive graphics.
We gave our daughter a micro:bit when she was nearly five (she is six now) and she loves it. The drag and drop programming that MakeCode offers is something that someone of that age can use to make very simple programs (push this button -> show an emoji or write your name). Seeing their program on real hardware then gives them a lot of satisfaction.
tl;dr: this is not competing with your average Linux-running ARM board or even other microcontrollers. Their goals is offering something that is fit and safe for education.
