With micro:bit learning and teaching is fun and easy!

Last Wednesday was a lot of fun at our Factory! As part of Osijek Software City and EU Code Week, we organized a micro:bit workshop. First of all, we want to thank Vlado Lendvaj, Nenad Bakić and IRIM – Croatian Makers for their equipment and help. 
Scroll down and find out more about micro:bit and student experiences!

How it all started

We are constantly looking for new technologies and new ways to motivate students. Last month, two of our interns Andrea Mihaljević and Manuela Mikulecki had a brilliant idea of organizing a programming workshop for high school students. Factory employees, Domagoj Štrekelj and Matija Marić, were happy to be part of the workshop.
Next step – meet micro:bit and organize the event!

Meet micro:bit

From robots to musical instruments – micro:bit can be used for all sorts of creations!
The micro:bit has an attractive design, for our project we used only the front part which contains LED matrix, two buttons and a combined croc-clip/edge connector, which can connect to a wide range of other devices. 

Main features:

• Light Emitting Diode (LED)  – allows display of text, numbers and images.
• Buttons – A and B buttons for handling the device.
• Pins – input/output pins which can attach external sensors such as thermometers or moisture detectors.
• Accelerometer – detects changes in the micro:bit’s speed.
• Compass – detects directions of movement.
• Bluetooth – for communicating with a device such as a smartphone or tablet.
• USB Interface – connecting with a computer or any other device.

With micro:bit coding isn’t just for Computing class! The micro:bit has projects that are great for design, physics and even art and music classes.

Student Experiences

Our workshop visited 15 students (mostly girls!). We were surprised how well they knew about STEM revolution, computer science and information technology.
Helena says that she is creative and loves being involved in the programming world. Micro:bit was a lot of fun and she hopes that it will be used in classrooms for math and musical classes. She also wants to know more about Micro:bit, what are it’s possibilities and limitations, and for what purposes it can be used. During the workshop, Helena was impressed by our friendly approach. She likes that micro:bit is very colorful and easy to use. She also attended courses about web design and web development, so we’re sure that Helena has the potential to become a great web designer or developer after high school!
Mihael is interested in web and mobile development. His love for computer science began with mobile phones and video games. He’s not like other students, he says. He loves to learn something new in his free time and already knows which faculty he will be attending in a few years. You guessed it! Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology in Osijek. Our workshop was a lot of fun for him and he can’t wait for the next one!
Thanks to all the students and their teacher for sharing this experience with us!

See the video from our workshop

We also shared the presentation of micro:bit so if you need it, feel free to use it!