BBC micro:bit - an introduction

I can't resist the challenge of a new (or ancient) piece of programmable kit and have been keen to try out the new BBC micro:bit - a small computer reminiscent of the Raspberry Pi and currently being handed out to all year 7 pupils in UK secondary schools.

It's a far cry from the original BBC Micro (of which I'm a great fan) but the purpose is the same - to introduce children to coding at an early age. School-based computing in the intervening years has been reduced to learning to use apps like word processing, spreadsheets and PowerPoint so this is potentially a great step forward. I'm particularly interested at the moment as I'm running a Code Club at a local primary school, helping kids learn programming using Scratch and Python.

I found my micro:bit for sale on eBay. I'm not sure these should be for sale at all yet as they haven't been released to the general public but it seemed a good opportunity to try one out. Here are some picture of the complete kit:

To get started I went to the BBC micro:bit website where you can create code online and download it onto the micro:bit. The whole process is really simple and I had a Hello World app running in a few minutes using MicroPython, for which there's a guide here: https://www.microbit.co.uk/python-guide, with further documentation here: http://microbit-micropython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.

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