- Getting ready
We worked with a Microbit microcontroller, which I connected to my computer and reset to factory settings so that I could start working with it. My experience with coding is still minimal, so while others were using python or editing their code in javascript, I used the drag-and-drop blocks tool available on the Microbit website. After I resetted it, it turned on and asked me to press both buttons and play a game of snake, I assume the game of snake was to calibrate its accelerometer.
- Programming the Microbit
When I started to try to work with the code, I thought about displaying something on the Microbit’s “Screen”. The first thing I thought about was have it display a word. Because it is a 5*5 LED screen, the message had to scroll or it had to be displayed letter by letter, so I had it show “I M A”, on repeat. I then wanted to try something more complex, so I tried to draw a Chinese character, but it was too complicated to display in a 5*5 grid (I wanted to have it say 你好, but the characters wouldn’t fit). The first limitation, then, was that the outputs we could get on the screen were too limited, same with audio. I then tried to have it work as a compass and point towards the north, but it turned out it would just point upwards, so I spent most of the time trying to make it work as a compass so that I could understand how the microbit worked.