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I'd love to think that the MicroBit would inspire kids to take an interest in computing. Unfortunately, I think that it's capabilities are too far removed from

I'd love to think that the MicroBit would inspire kids to take an interest in computing. Unfortunately, I think that it's capabilities are too far removed from kids understanding of computing. In my era, the games we played were obviously on the same machine as we played on... we knew that given enough time and knowledge we could create Manic Miner, etc. A child given a MicroBit would not see the relationship between it and their XBox... they're just too far removed. What we really need is a something more akin to a Python interpreter on an XBox. That would be much more directly related to kids experiences these days.

timthorn 11y ago
> I think that it's capabilities are too far removed from kids understanding of computing I'd argue that's a /good/ thing. If all children think of when they talk about computing are highly polished apps, it raises the psychological barrier to entry - and a limited platform also encourages consideration of the hardware and promotes hackery. There's a school of thought that the UK tech industry is so strong today because of the limited nature of the Sinclair and Acron computers c.f. Apple & other US computers.
- TickleSteve 11y ago
  true, the machines in those days were much more limited and hence more understandable.... I'm a product of that era but what inspired me back then was hoping to create games similar to what I was then playing. Don't get me wrong, I would love for kids to get into the MicroBit, I deal with similar systems all day long (embedded/realtime stuff on Cortex-Ms) but although its more accessible now due to the MicroBit and RPi, it seems to me that there is still a cognitive gap for kids to jump.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
edent 11y ago
Nah. I teach kids Scratch. They're not producing Xbox style games - barely even Gameboy style - but they love it! Creation is its own reward - and imagination is more powerful than any GPU.
- TickleSteve 11y ago
  Completely understand the creativity bit... and I'm glad its working for you, but I think the hope of recreating the era of the Spectrum/BBC/AppleII/etc isn't going to work. I'm a product of that era (as I suspect you are) and what inspired me was that I knew I was able to do whatever the professionals were able to do.... Thats a cognitive gap that I dont think has been bridged with this type of device.
david-given 11y ago
It's important to remember that toys like the MicroBit are not just about writing computer programs: they're about actually doing things in the real world. As you say, we're so painfully overexposed to seeing cool stuff on a computer screen that none of it's cool any more. A child learning basic programming can't make anything that can compete with even the lousiest modern game. But take that same basic programming and apply it to something that's physical, which you can touch and pick up and show your friends... now that's cool again. Remember Logo, Papert's educational language? With the turtle graphics? You weren't supposed to drive a pointer around on the screen. You were supposed to use with a real turtle, driving around on the floor drawing pictures with a marker pen! (Have these vanished completely? I could barely find anything on Youtube, except a few modern and rather inaccurate recreations. Here's a moderately crummy original video from the 70s talking about them, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk)
- TickleSteve 11y ago
  True, and in that they have value... I played around with both a real Turtle and in Logo on an RM Nimbus back in the day. Computing is so much of an everyday thing now that there is no Wow! factor anymore. If nothing else, maybe we're enabling the next generation of embedded-softies which would be no bad thing. BTW: http://www.calormen.com/jslogo http://www.calormen.com/jslogo
- david-given 11y ago
  ...serious question: why can you not these days get marker-pen turtles for silly small amounts of money? (Or, indeed, at all?) Battery, wireless and sensing technology is now so easy and cheap that producing a battery-powered turtle which talks Bluetooth ought to be simple. You could use the works from an optical mouse for motion tracking. The old turtles got quite sophisticated, and eventually turned into plotters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR8enP09RPI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR8enP09RPI (The hole in the middle was where you put the pen for turtle mode.) Look at those elegant curves as it draws straight lines! And you can see it calibrate itself against the edge of the paper. They made a later version with a longer cable but I can't find a video. Ah! There's a 1985 review of the plotter on page 28 of this: ftp://ftp.stardot.org.uk/pub/docs/magazines/beebug/volume04/greyscale/BeebUG%20Volume%2004%20Number%2002%20June%201985.pdf Man, I had that magazine when it was new...
astrodust 11y ago
The last thing we need is a Python interpreter on an XBox. That just teaches kids they're second class citizens. Give them something like XNA where with C# they could make a proper title that could end up in the Indie Store. The Micro Bit is way better than an Xbox in many ways. It's cheap: If you smoke it you won't be out hundreds of dollars. It's tiny: You can send it into space and use it on a small robot. It's simple: You can pretty much see everything on the board and understand it at a theoretical level with some studying. It's like learning to drive in a go-cart before settling in to a full-sized race car. It's perfectly fine and a lot more fun since you don't have to worry as much about breaking things or killing someone.
jdietrich 11y ago
> I think that it's capabilities are too far removed from kids understanding of computing. Good. Microcontrollers vastly outnumber any other kind of computer. Embedded computers do some of the most important things in computing. Microbit is a gateway into this thrilling world. It's a magical device that makes ordinary objects intelligent. The Microbit has an accelerometer and Bluetooth LE, but it has something much more exciting - GPIO pins with PWM and ADC that can be connected to with a crocodile clip. You can attach piezo buzzers, thermistors and LDRs, you can jury-rig a switch out of bits of foil or a potentiometer with a pencil. There's a clear pathway of progression. Start with the graphical programming system, move up to MicroPython, then to C with Mbed. Start with croc clips and bits of wire, move on to a breadboard, then use the edge connector to breakout all 20 GPIO pins. Quick, simple exercises lead naturally to major projects. If someone had given me a Microbit when I was eleven, I would have been delirious with excitement. It would have consumed every moment of my spare time. I'm certain that the Microbit will change lives.
- TickleSteve 11y ago
  True, and maybe its fundamentally different to the computing revolution we grew up with.... we were driven by creating games. Maybe this generation needs to be motivated by sensing and responding to the real world. I think my point is that it is very different these days, so reproducing what we had then is pointless, we have to find a new way to motivate kids into computing. BTW, I'm an embedded softie, so I would love to think we could start an embedded revolution.... just not sure its as easy a message to get across to kids as 'games'.

timthorn 11y ago

> I think that it's capabilities are too far removed from kids understanding of computing I'd argue that's a /good/ thing. If all children think of when they talk about computing are highly polished apps, it raises the psychological barrier to entry - and a limited platform also encourages consideration of the hardware and promotes hackery. There's a school of thought that the UK tech industry is so strong today because of the limited nature of the Sinclair and Acron computers c.f. Apple & other US computers.

TickleSteve 11y ago
true, the machines in those days were much more limited and hence more understandable.... I'm a product of that era but what inspired me back then was hoping to create games similar to what I was then playing. Don't get me wrong, I would love for kids to get into the MicroBit, I deal with similar systems all day long (embedded/realtime stuff on Cortex-Ms) but although its more accessible now due to the MicroBit and RPi, it seems to me that there is still a cognitive gap for kids to jump.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

edent 11y ago

Nah. I teach kids Scratch. They're not producing Xbox style games - barely even Gameboy style - but they love it! Creation is its own reward - and imagination is more powerful than any GPU.

TickleSteve 11y ago
Completely understand the creativity bit... and I'm glad its working for you, but I think the hope of recreating the era of the Spectrum/BBC/AppleII/etc isn't going to work. I'm a product of that era (as I suspect you are) and what inspired me was that I knew I was able to do whatever the professionals were able to do.... Thats a cognitive gap that I dont think has been bridged with this type of device.

david-given 11y ago

It's important to remember that toys like the MicroBit are not just about writing computer programs: they're about actually doing things in the real world. As you say, we're so painfully overexposed to seeing cool stuff on a computer screen that none of it's cool any more. A child learning basic programming can't make anything that can compete with even the lousiest modern game. But take that same basic programming and apply it to something that's physical, which you can touch and pick up and show your friends... now that's cool again. Remember Logo, Papert's educational language? With the turtle graphics? You weren't supposed to drive a pointer around on the screen. You were supposed to use with a real turtle, driving around on the floor drawing pictures with a marker pen! (Have these vanished completely? I could barely find anything on Youtube, except a few modern and rather inaccurate recreations. Here's a moderately crummy original video from the 70s talking about them, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk)

TickleSteve 11y ago
True, and in that they have value... I played around with both a real Turtle and in Logo on an RM Nimbus back in the day. Computing is so much of an everyday thing now that there is no Wow! factor anymore. If nothing else, maybe we're enabling the next generation of embedded-softies which would be no bad thing. BTW: http://www.calormen.com/jslogo http://www.calormen.com/jslogo
david-given 11y ago
...serious question: why can you not these days get marker-pen turtles for silly small amounts of money? (Or, indeed, at all?) Battery, wireless and sensing technology is now so easy and cheap that producing a battery-powered turtle which talks Bluetooth ought to be simple. You could use the works from an optical mouse for motion tracking. The old turtles got quite sophisticated, and eventually turned into plotters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR8enP09RPI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR8enP09RPI (The hole in the middle was where you put the pen for turtle mode.) Look at those elegant curves as it draws straight lines! And you can see it calibrate itself against the edge of the paper. They made a later version with a longer cable but I can't find a video. Ah! There's a 1985 review of the plotter on page 28 of this: ftp://ftp.stardot.org.uk/pub/docs/magazines/beebug/volume04/greyscale/BeebUG%20Volume%2004%20Number%2002%20June%201985.pdf Man, I had that magazine when it was new...

astrodust 11y ago

The last thing we need is a Python interpreter on an XBox. That just teaches kids they're second class citizens. Give them something like XNA where with C# they could make a proper title that could end up in the Indie Store. The Micro Bit is way better than an Xbox in many ways. It's cheap: If you smoke it you won't be out hundreds of dollars. It's tiny: You can send it into space and use it on a small robot. It's simple: You can pretty much see everything on the board and understand it at a theoretical level with some studying. It's like learning to drive in a go-cart before settling in to a full-sized race car. It's perfectly fine and a lot more fun since you don't have to worry as much about breaking things or killing someone.

jdietrich 11y ago

> I think that it's capabilities are too far removed from kids understanding of computing. Good. Microcontrollers vastly outnumber any other kind of computer. Embedded computers do some of the most important things in computing. Microbit is a gateway into this thrilling world. It's a magical device that makes ordinary objects intelligent. The Microbit has an accelerometer and Bluetooth LE, but it has something much more exciting - GPIO pins with PWM and ADC that can be connected to with a crocodile clip. You can attach piezo buzzers, thermistors and LDRs, you can jury-rig a switch out of bits of foil or a potentiometer with a pencil. There's a clear pathway of progression. Start with the graphical programming system, move up to MicroPython, then to C with Mbed. Start with croc clips and bits of wire, move on to a breadboard, then use the edge connector to breakout all 20 GPIO pins. Quick, simple exercises lead naturally to major projects. If someone had given me a Microbit when I was eleven, I would have been delirious with excitement. It would have consumed every moment of my spare time. I'm certain that the Microbit will change lives.

TickleSteve 11y ago
True, and maybe its fundamentally different to the computing revolution we grew up with.... we were driven by creating games. Maybe this generation needs to be motivated by sensing and responding to the real world. I think my point is that it is very different these days, so reproducing what we had then is pointless, we have to find a new way to motivate kids into computing. BTW, I'm an embedded softie, so I would love to think we could start an embedded revolution.... just not sure its as easy a message to get across to kids as 'games'.