Stay up-to-date with the latest micro:bit news, articles, and more.
micro:bit broadcast Issue #22
Hi everyone,
This
week the Micro:bit Foundation has officially launched the BBC micro:bit
in North America, a great milestone to celebrate with our regular dose
of micro:bit news, articles, projects and more! I'm very much looking
forward to see what our growing community across the pond will be able
to do with our beloved device.
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News
micro:bit Launches in U.S. & Canada
The Micro:bit Foundation aims to put the device into the hands of 2 million children in the U.S. & Canada by 2020.
New Product: 1up:bit controller kit
This low cost game pad / controller kit for the BBC micro:bit will give
you access to an analogue thumb stick, much like the ones in a PSP, and
two extra buttons taking the count up to 4 including the A and B button
on the micro:bit.
New Product: BBC micro:bit RobotArm
This fully assembled Robot Arm comes with a BBC micro:bit to control it,
and can use an optional BBC micro:bit as a remote control.
New Product: AMP:BIT class D amplifier with headphone jack
The Amp:bit is the easiest way to connect a speaker or headphones to
your BBC micro:bit. It plugs on to the edge of your micro:bit and gives
you the option of plugging headphones or speakers into the provided
headphone jack, or you can solder speaker wires directly to the provided
pads.
Articles
Microsoft 14 Week Curriculum
This course is targeted to middle school grades 6-8 (ages 11-14 years).
It is also written for teachers who may not have a Computer Science
background, or may be teaching an "Intro to Computer Science" course for
the first time.
ISTE2017 teacher notes and lesson plans
To celebrate the launch of the BBC micro:bit in the U.S. and Canada and
the micro:bit showing at the ISTE 2017 Conference in San Antonio, Texas,
the Micro:bit Foundation has released four special STEM micro:bit
lessons.
Projects
Soil Moisture and Plant Watering
Two MakeCode projects to track the soil moisture of your plants and water them automatically.
Hot Or Cold
Find the hidden micro:bit before the other players!
Reaction Time
Make a reaction time experiment that responds to your body’s conductivity!
Binary Glove
This project aims to help learners understand binary representation
using micro:bit. It might be useful to include as a project/idea for
students/teachers to make the micro:bit more helpful when studying the
basis of computer science.
JetBrains PyCharm IDE micro:bit support
Support for MicroPython devices in IntelliJ IDEA and PyCharm.
Includes: Code completion, docs for MicroPython modules, flash a Python file to a device, and run REPL on a device.
AppIventor micro:bit support
As part of the "Internet of Things" update, MIT App Inventor (a visual
programming environment for Android applications) now provides a way to
access the micro:bit BLE services.
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