Video transcript: foreign well a microprocessor is the central unit of a computer system that performs arithmetic and logic operations which generally include adding subtracting and comparing two numbers it's often known simply as a processor at central processing units or just a CPU it's essentially the engine or the brain of the computer that goes into motion when the computer is switched on they are very small hence micro and they take in information as an input process that information and then provide an output based on the instructions or code hence processor computers and laptops aren't the only devices that use microprocessors everything from smartphones to household appliances even today's cars use microprocessors and here's a few reasons why they are so widely used firstly they don't cost a lot microprocessors don't cost much to produce so this means that using microprocessors in a device can provide great computing power while also keeping the cost of the device relatively cheap for example look at all the things a smart TV can do nowadays compared to a TV from 10 years ago the next reason is they are fast microprocessors operate at incredibly high speeds today's microprocessors can execute millions of instructions per second they also consume little power power consumption by microprocessors is very low and this makes devices equipped with them much more energy efficient they are portable due to how small microprocessors are and that they don't consume a lot of power devices using them can be designed to be portable like phones and smart watches they are reliable microprocessors have an extremely low failure rate and are very very reliable they operate the exact same way according to their instructions or code over and over again imagine if we could do that as humans try writing the number zero five times in a row you'll be doing well just to get one or two of the zeros looking very similar let alone the exact same and finally they are versatile the same microprocessor chip can be used by numerous applications they can be used in different devices in different ways depending on how it's programmed making them incredibly versatile so why are we interested in microprocessors and learning what they do well essentially we program them with our code you've probably programmed something on a computer such as a scratch project and when your code ran you saw the result on your computer screen well in robotics you will program the microprocessor in a robot and you'll see the result in how the robot Acts or moves in the next units we're going to look at micro bits which are very small programmable computers designed especially for Learning and teaching coding we'll be using Dam and also robotic kits in this course to explain different things about programming robots