My organization is working with the BBC Microbit Foundation to make these devices more popular in the US education system. I find the Microbit to be far less in

My organization is working with the BBC Microbit Foundation to make these devices more popular in the US education system. I find the Microbit to be far less intimidating than the Arduino, since the IDE is entirely web based and students can copy a program onto it just as they would copy a file onto an external USB drive. One feature that kills it in the classroom is the Microbit's built-in 5 x 5 LED matrix, which means right out of the box it's "blink" program is much more interesting than the Arduino's one orange LED. Some kids will just spend the entire first day playing with the LED matrix, like getting their name to scroll across it, or programming the LEDs individually to make cool patterns. The Microbit also comes with an external battery holder for two AAA batteries, and feels a lot better to carry in your pocket than an Arduino or Raspberry Pi. After seeing the tremendous adoption in the UK and meeting the Microbit founders, I am very confident this board will play a big role in introducing K-12 students to digital electronics.