Microbit
Beginner
60 mins
Teacher/Student led
165 points
What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC
Microbit

Meet the Microbit

Discover the world of microbits, pocket-sized computers that you can program. Learn how to create a new project, navigate the project editor, and add your first piece of code. Program your microbit to display messages, react to button presses, and even respond to movement. Explore, experiment, and have fun!
Learning Goals Learning Outcomes Teacher Notes

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    1 - What is a microbit?

    Meet the microbit! A microbit is a small, pocket-sized computer that we can program to do fun and interesting things.

    It's like a tiny, interactive billboard that can display messages, play sounds, and react to your actions. You can program it to respond to buttons being pressed and even movement.

    In this lesson, we're going to learn how to program the microbit to show messages and react to button presses. Let's get started!



    2 - Create a new project

    Did you know we can program our microbit using a website? To start our coding adventure, we need to create a new project.

    First, open the website MakeCode for microbit.

    Once you're there, look for a button that says 'New Project' and click on it. It will ask you what you want to call your project. Give your project a name (for example 'my project') and then click on the 'Create' button.

    This will open a new, blank project where we can start programming our microbit and give it instructions.


    3 - The Project Editor

    Let's take a look around the projector editor screen.

    Microbit Simulator
    On the left side of the screen, you'll see a simulator of a microbit. When we create some code, we will see it play in the simulator.

    Toolbox
    On the right side of the simulator, you'll see a toolbox with different categories of blocks. Each of these blocks is a different type of instruction for the microbit.

    Code Area
    On the right is the code area where we will write our code. It starts with two code blocks already added:
    on start and forever. on start is used for code that should run once when the microbit starts up. forever is used for code that should keep running over and over again.


    4 - Add Our First Code!

    Now let's add our first piece of code. The microbit has a grid of little red LED lights and we're going to make the microbit show some numbers using those lights.

    Add the following code:

    basic.showNumber(0)
    Once you've added that code, the microbit simulator should show the number 0.

    Next change the number 0 to a different number, in our example we changing it to the number 4:

    basic.showNumber(4)
    Now the simulator should refresh and show the number 4.




    5 - Delete Some Code

    Now let's delete the show number code block. We can do this by dragging and dropping it back into the toolbox.

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