Dear friends welcome to another video!
In this video, we are going to take a first look at the impressive BBC micro:bit board.
This board, although small in size, is very capable and very easy to program.
But is it better than an Arduino Uno for a complete beginner in programming and electronics?
Let's find out!
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The micro:bit development board is a relatively new development board which was released in
2016.
It is developed with the intention to encourage children to get involved with programming,
electronics and making in general.
The purpose of this board resonates with me because I worked as a computer teacher for
over 6 years in the past and I taught kids to code.
I think coding is a very important skill in today's world, and that's the reason I
created this YouTube channel in the first place; to show people that programming can
be fun and easy to learn!
Thousands of micro:bit boards were given away to every 11-year-old school child in Britain
last year.
Now the board is also available as a commercial product.
It costs around 15$.
I got the micro:bit GO bundle for around 17$ from DFrobot.com website.
You can find a link to it in the description below.
The micro:bit comes in a small box inside which we can find, a safety guide, a small
instruction leaflet, the board itself, a small battery box, two batteries and a USB cable.
Let's now take a closer look at the board.
As you can see the board is very small in size, way smaller than the Raspberry Pi or
even the Arduino Uno.
The micro:bit features a 5x5 led matrix and two push buttons on the front side and some
sensors and microcontrollers at the back side.
But first, let's power it up and see what it does out of the box.
At first, the board welcomes us with some cool animations on the LED matrix, and then
it displays a Hello Message and guides us to press the buttons, shake the board or even
play a small chase the dot game on it.
Cool!
Lastly, the board encourages us to start coding, but first, let's take a closer look at the
hardware of the board because it is very interesting!
The board offers two 32 bit ARM processors at the back of the chip, but only one of them
is available to execute our code on.
The other one is responsible for the USB communication with the computer.
So the Micro bit features the following: A 32Bit user programmable CPU which is clocked
at 16 MHz.
It also offers Bluetooth connectivity, 16 KBs of RAM memory, 256 KB of flash memory,
19 GPIOS pins, I2C, SPI and UART Buses, 3 Analog to Digital Pins; a 5x5 LED matrix,
an Accelerometer, A Magnetometer, A thermometer, and a light meter!
Impressive stuff!
Compared to an Arduino Uno, the micro:bit is much more capable since it features many
sensors, two buttons, and many LEDs!
As a result, all you need to get to start making projects is the micro:bit and nothing
else.
In comparison, with an Arduino Uno board, all you can do is to blink an LED which is
not very compelling to children in an age of smartphones and game consoles.
But, with the microbit board children can build a simple game in minutes so this might
get their attention!
We are not limited to the embedded sensors that the board offers though.
We can use some crocodile clips and have easy access to three pins of the microcontroller!
Of course, we can have access to all the pins of the microcontroller if we use the Edge
Connector Breakout board.
But even without it we can build many projects with this fantastic board.
Let's do just that, let's create a simple project.
There are 5 ways to program this board: • The first one is Javascript
• We can use the Block Editor developed by Microsoft
• Another way to program the board is the Touch Develop interface
• We can also use Micro Python • Lastly, we can use our familiar Arduino
IDE The most fun and easy to way to program the
board is to use the Block Editor.
All we have to do is to open a web browser and visit this website:
https://makecode.microbit.org/ The Block Editor loads up, and we are ready
to develop our first program simply by dragging and dropping commands!
There are commands for everything the board offers.
Simply by dragging the command show string, for example, we can display text on the LED
matrix.
If we place that command inside the On Start block, for example, the text "Hello" appears
on the LED matrix of the simulator.
The commands click together like Lego bricks!
How cool is that!
Also, the Block Editor environment supports many languages.
Microsoft has done a great job on this software!
Programming a development board this way is very fun and easy!
Let's now build our first useful program.
Let's build a thermometer!
When we press button A, the board will display the temperature on the LED matrix.
It won't take us more than a minute!
First of all, we delete all the blocks.
Then from the input tab, we drag and drop the On_Button A Pressed block.
Then we go to the Basic tab we select the show_number block and we attach it to the
On_Button pressed block.
Now, all we have to do is to get the temperature.
We go to the Input tab again, and we drag the temperature command and drop it on the
input of the show number command like this.
We can test our program on the emulator and then we can download the code to the board
itself.
We copy the .hex file that is created and we paste it into the micro bit drive that
appears if we plug in the board to the computer.
Now press the reset button and our first program is running on the microbit board!
Fantastic!
Coding can be so simple and quick!
Have you ever seen a more user friendly programming environment?
I haven't seen anything as easy as this one!
Even though the Block Editor programming environment was designed to be used mainly by kids, I
think it is great for adults as well.
If you are a complete beginner to electronics and programming, this is the best way to start.
Forget about the Arduino or the Raspberry Pi.
Get a micro:bit board.
Learn the basics of programming, like loops, conditional structures, functions and so on.
Build some simple projects with it.
Then, if you are limited by the Block Editor environment, switch to microPython and learn
a real programming language!
After that you are free to move on to an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi to build more complex projects.
Don't just copy and paste the code I or other people provide online.
Learn to code; it is an extremely useful skill to have!
Don't miss the opportunity!
Learning how to code today is extremely easy and fun.
Just get the micro:bit and you are done!
I learned how to code about 20 years ago when I was in high school.
We were taught GW-Basic under DOS, and we were typing text commands on a black window,
and all we could do was to make some calculations or to display some text on the screen.
Using the knowledge, I got from School I managed to program my friend's Commodore 64 for
the first time to display some custom text.
That was the first program ever developed, and I was so excited.
As you can see I am still excited about programming, programming became my career.
So, as a final word, if you want to learn how to program, I truly believe this is the
best way to start.
I would love to hear your opinion on this board.
Do you also think that this the best development board for a beginner?
Do you know any boards that are even better than the Micro:bit board?
Also, if you are an experienced programmer, I would love to know on what machine you learned
how to code.
Please post your comments below and don't forget to press the like button if you find
this video interesting!
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In this channel, I post videos about DIY projects twice a month.
I love making things, and I believe that anyone can make things, anyone can become a maker.
That's why I created this channel, to share my knowledge with the community and learn
from the community.
I hope you will join us.
I will see you in the next video!
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