
Micro:bit developer community - ntoll
http://tech.microbit.org/
======
abchatra
We build editor for microbit (beta -
[https://pxt.microbit.org](https://pxt.microbit.org)). Code is open source as
well([https://github.com/Microsoft/pxt](https://github.com/Microsoft/pxt)).
Give us some feedback.

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tomcam
Can we agree that you seem to have one of the greatest jobs at Microsoft?

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abchatra
:-). Yes I do love it here. Thanks!

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open-source-ux
Here is the BBC's portal site for the micro:bit aimed specifically at kids

[https://www.microbit.co.uk/](https://www.microbit.co.uk/)

Hopefully, all the videos on the site are accessible to international viewers,
otherwise it would be a missed opportunity to spread the knowledge to
everyone.

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yalogin
So this is not available in the US yet. And there is no link to a reseller
directly from their site.

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curioussavage
Yeah I waited for a while to see if a US seller would appear but ended up
buying one at pimoroni. glad I stopped waiting, its really fun to tinker with.

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tonetheman
I bought one. Programming it online and being able drag/drop a hex file onto
the device makes it super simple and approachable.

Very cool product.

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IshKebab
That's how all mbed boards are programmed (one of the ways anyway). It's ok
until you need a real IDE and then they don't have any great solutions.

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jonnyaustin
That used to be the case, but have a look at the new mbed exporters - you can
now export to: uVision 4 uVision 5 DS-5 LPCXpresso IAR Embedded Workbench
CooCox CoIDE Kinetis Design Studio Simplicity Studio Atmel Studio SW4STM32
Systems Workbench e2studio Emblocks

(taken from this recent post [https://developer.mbed.org/blog/entry/Fixed-
exporters-in-the...](https://developer.mbed.org/blog/entry/Fixed-exporters-in-
the-mbed-Online-Compi/) )

Which is a healthy start! There's an open source project for export to things
that mbed uses: [https://github.com/project-
generator/project_generator](https://github.com/project-
generator/project_generator)

full disclosure: I am part of the mbed team

~~~
IshKebab
While that is certainly good, people using Arduino now aren't going to spend
£1k on IAR or whatever. Emblocks always seemed like a good option but as far
as I can tell it isn't developed any more.

Qt Creator, Visual Studio Code, KDevelop etc. would be more welcome. I did
write an exporter for Qt Creator actually a year or two ago and abandoned it
after the move to Yotta. Guess it is time to revive it!

Btw where is the mbed team based?

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rb808
I see these are available to buy in the UK now (has singles from other
retailers [http://uk.farnell.com/bbc-microbit-
reseller](http://uk.farnell.com/bbc-microbit-reseller)).
[http://uk.farnell.com/bbc-microbit?CMP=AFC-AN-UK-
ALL-473347](http://uk.farnell.com/bbc-microbit?CMP=AFC-AN-UK-ALL-473347)
Anyone how to buy a single one in the US? My 8yo was going to get an arduino
robot for Christmas but this might simpler to use I think.

~~~
curioussavage
I bought mine from Pimoroni. Took two weeks to get to California. I paid in
bitcoin so I'm not sure what the exact cost was in dollars. I bought two more
for other people.

Much simpler for beginners. And they sell a coin cell add on board so your kid
can carry it around and show people. Or put it on a lanyard.

~~~
whiskers
I'm sorry the shipping took so long, usually standard shipping to the US
arrives within a week (though we offer UPS next day services for extra cost).

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zellyn
I'm assuming someone will try to drive close-enough NTSC/PAL signals from the
analog outputs, and create (a) demoscene demos and (b) Doom. Any links to such
hijinks yet?

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curioussavage
Haven't seen that yet myself but I did see a guy write flappy bird on it.

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msh
I have a hard time understanding the educational value of the micro bit. It
seems way to underpowered to do anything interesting educational wise.

~~~
solaris999
I think you underestimate how much having something tactile, with buttons and
LEDs, can really shift how younger students perceive learning. I volunteer
teach a group of 8/9 year olds an intro to programming class and the
difference between teaching them Python using CLI-esque tools and making
things light up on the micro:bit is astounding.

~~~
rb808
Is that age group the best age to learn? I notice they're targeting year 7/8/9
in the UK - is that high school?

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frutiger
The ages for education/schools in the UK:

    
    
         5-11    -> Primary School
        11-16    -> Secondary School
        16-18    -> Further Education (often called college, or Sixth Form)
        18-21/22 -> Higher Education (University/undergraduate)
    

Some secondary schools are large enough/have enough expertise to have a Sixth
Form as part of it. Some children go to "preparatory school" until age 13 when
they enter a secondary school.

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xchaotic
I would like to once more criticize the fact that BBC re-invented the wheel
(and micro:bit) at a time where $5 Raspberry Pi 0 is widely available. It
would have been much better to spend the effort of producing better learning
software and ecosystem for Raspberry Pi instead. Someone boasted about the
lengths it took to make Python run on micro:bit and it still isn't full Python
and no chance for anything graphically intensive, whereas you can code
Minecraft on Raspberry Pi and actually plug it to your TV.

~~~
foenix
I somewhat agree, but would like to counter by saying that the micro:bit has
been an invaluable tool for me personally to teach fundamental hardware
programming. The pi zero, while a great tool for more advanced programming,
still requires some boilerplate knowledge of electrical engineering that
surpasses what one would want to teach someone who just wants to make some
lights flash.

The micro:bit has, built in: a 5×5 array of leds, an accelerometer, a digital
compass, 2 push buttons, a set of piezo / touch io, and a low-power bluetooth
radio — all of which have api libraries and documentation that a user doesn't
need to write themselves.

While there are a multitude of awesome things that can be done with the pi
zero, there's still a non-trivial amount of setup required to program basic
hardware features.

