Introducing BBC Micro: Bit

The BBC micro:bit is a microcontroller board designed by the BBC for use in computer education. In 2016, as part of the BBC’s Make It Digital campaign, one million devices were distributed to school children in the UK so they could learn programming at an early age. Hopefully, this will lead to more people choosing to work in software development. The future will determine whether the campaign is successful or not.

The BBC micro:bit has become very popular and all kinds of expansion boards, kits and accessories have seen the light of day. It measures approximately 5 x 4 cm and has two push buttons, a 5 x 5 LED matrix and a touch sensor. There is also a 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis magnetometer, and it contains a microphone and a small speaker. The brain of the board is the nRF52833 ARM Cortex-M4 processor from Nordic Semiconductor with built-in Bluetooth.

easy to use

A lot of effort has gone into making BBC micro:bit as easy to use as possible. The board can be programmed in different languages ​​such as MicroPython, MakeCode and JavaScript and this can be done online without installing anything.

For more advanced users, the BBC micro:bit is a cheap, small but powerful microcontroller card with Bluetooth and sensors suitable for IoT applications, for example.

Watch this video to learn more about BBC Micro:bit.

Translation: Hans Adams