2. Week 02¶
This week I used two Micro:bits to connect to each other to make a game.
The Process¶
Previously, I had made a program in Micro:Bit to record the light and temperature of the green house in our school. This data was saved onto the Micro:bit, and when plugged into the computer, the data file could be copied over and read. This year, I wanted to make a game that the students could enjoy with their programming skills. So, I decided to make a hide and seek game. One Micro:Bit would send a signal, and the other one would receive the signal, while also having some sort of display change to indicate if they are getting hotter or colder. There is a tutorial on the Makecode website, but after trying it (and a few other tutorials,) they did not work well. The problem was the range was too small. The signal would only seem to react when within a meter or two of the hidden device. So, I tried using AI to help with the coding. Using Flint, I gave it a promt of a hide and go seek game using Micro:Bit V2, using block coding, and it gave great one by one instructions on what blocks to enter into the programming area. After a few tweeks to the code, I tried it to find out the area that it was showing as “hot” was basically within 1 meter of the Micro:Bit, while the rest of the 40 square meters of the classroom was cold. A few more edits to the code later and it was able to clearly show cold being 10+ meters away, warm being around 5 meters, and hot being around 1 meter away. Hopefully I can teach how to make these codes to students in the future!
Related Links¶
- Seeker Code
- For the seeker code, you may need to edit the “plot bar graph up to” number from 50-255, depending on the area you will be playing in.
- Hider Code
Video of the game¶
Reflection Questions¶
What are some opportunities in your context to work within your local community? Who you could collaborate with? How? What should happen to succeed in the collaboration?
A: It would be a huge challenge to get the students permission to go out into the community for help, and in addition to this our school is sitting in the middle of a 2 square kilometer plant nursery area. All the black and gray buildings you see around the school are basically indoor gardens. That being said, students could probably learn a lot from the areas around us in how to grow plants better. Perhaps we could make a similar Micro:Bit program I had talked about earlier to measure the humidity, temperature, and light in their giant greenhouses, and see if we could copy their data into our currently empty greenhouse. It would be awesome to have the students start finding local issues and find solutions for those problems, and possibly for the PYP exhibition in grade 5, start implementing solutions to those problems in our community.
What are the next steps in development further a makerspace in your school? How do you envision the maker space?
A: Our makespace is pretty well developed already, but it needs to be more “primary school friendly.” The tables and chairs are too high. The equipement is too dangerous for young kids to use. The chairs spin in circles and the tables have holes in them, which results in multiple distractions during lessons for kids. In addition, the small holes often have small garbage inside of them, which results in students picking the garbage the entire class, and then moving that garbage into the other holes or onto the floor later. I’d love to get lower tables, that have a wall around the top so that students don’t accidently drop stuff off it. Also, we need more child-friendly tools and materials for building.
What is the potential of physical computing and IoT for your teaching? Do you have any ideas on how you are planning to integrate those techniques in your context?
A: I think that most of the physical computing and IoT for primary school is beyond our ability levels as of now, especially for non-native English speakers. Last year, we used Micro:Bits to try to connect to each others, with various degrees of success. I think we all need more information and more primary friendly ways to implement this into our classes to make it happen.