Tag: microbit

Makecode and Makedo Christmas

The tree has maths baubles, made with our maths skills of measuring of length & angles. And micro:bit ones too. To make the micro:bit ones we need to make 2 animations called from functions. This is the first time we have incorporated functions in our micro:bit code. The microbits are controlled via another micro:bit and the radio feature. There are loops and comparisons involved too.

If you press the play button above you will be able to see the different animation by pressing button A or B. Pressing both together should stop the animation.

Screenshot of the code from Robert’s iPad
Makecode gif animation

The tree itself is made with cardboard & makedo.

We had quite a relaxing day today after our Christmas show yesterday afternoon & evening. We did some maths work looking at tessellation and transformation of shapes, first on paper then in Keynote. We used the idea of Stained Glass windows for the keynote1 and practised our skills in grouping and transforming shapes. We also use images that we are allowed to use legally. We didn’t just grab them from google.

Most of the images have attribution on the image, the other ones used these photos:
Flickr Photo: Aurora by QIAOS license:Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Flickr Photo: Northern Lights In Tromso by B Lucava license:Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

  1. The idea borrowed from Winter Wonderland 2024 – Renfrewshire Apple Regional Training Centre ↩︎

Biggies Highlights W/E September 8th

Another fast week. Highlights for us included the progress we had made in the designs for or elastic band vehicles. A few can be seen on the featured image of this post. Hopefully we can get them all finished and run some distance trials soon.

Poetry

The class have really got into writing poetry and I think we will present some to the parents at next weeks coffee morning. We will put them on the blog too.

micro:bits

Working with the micro:bits on creating virtual pets, some of the more experienced pupils really made great efforts. The idea was to build a simple tamagochi type toy. We had instructions for stroking them to happiness and shaking them to an unhappy state. Some pupils started work on give them health, feeding them and even making them sick if they eat too much. This was all independent work. I was delighted to see the use of variables and loops recalled from last session.

Screenshot of micro:bit code for virtual pet.

Makerspace Robot Roundup

We have been working hard in our Makerspace on our Robots challenge.

The Challenge is to create a model Robot with elements of, Movement, Electricity & Coding.

The class has done an amazing job with lots of fun and failure. I’ve been especially impressed how the groups worked together and adapted their ideas as the went along.

I gathered quite a lot of quotes from the class and have added some below in their unedited glory.

General Comments

  • His back there is a skewer that you twist so that tightens the rope to make the flaps go up and loosen it to go down
  • It is a micro bit that plays a song by another micro bit sending it messages to start and stop
  • We had to change the song a few thousand times but we got there in the end.
  • We argued about the wheels and some designs but we didn’t argue much. The wheels worked out well and the coding component is working well too.
  • Yes when we were cutting our blocks of wood to hold up a big platform. The blocks where slanted so we had to make new ones and measure it correctly so it was in a straight line.
  • We didn’t think of how the weight of the head was going to affect the motor. This was because the head was too large. Also we painted some of it and changed a lot of the outer design and make the packages more realistic by putting things in them.
  • It’s moving part is the spinning brush on the front, a motor is hooked up to a battery pack and a switch using wires, when the switch is clicked the motor turns a piece of glue tack spins and the brush is attached to it.
  • My robot is a large Aztec sort of style robot called A.D.A.M. A.D.A.M stands for Ancient Dispenser of Aztec Mummies. As the name suggests it dispenses drawings of mummies.
  • It is called Adam it is like a box and it has wheels dispense mummies

Enjoyed

  • I enjoyed working with others and learning how different things work.
  • I really enjoyed be able to express my creativity
  • Being partners with the people I was and painting and talking to them.
  • I enjoyed creative work and doing fun things with saws and hot glue guns
  • I enjoyed making a lot of the things we made and I think I work well in most of the groups I was put in.
  • I enjoyed working with the micro bits and coding elements.
  • I enjoyed using different equipment like hot glue guns.

Didn’t enjoy

  • I didn’t enjoy the we had a problem with the electronics
  • I didn’t enjoy all the arguing but then again it was mostly needed because of voting.
  • I didn’t enjoy the problem with the wheels and trying to fix that because it took a while to find a solution.
  • I enjoyed everything about the makerspace, and didn’t dislike anything.

Learned

  • I learned that it’s sometimes people need to learn to try help each other more then we should.
  • I learned how to put the movie into keynote and I learned how to do wiring.
  • I learned how to work with others better and how to make different things, I feel like I’m better at arts and crafts as well.
  • I learned that wires were very complicated and annoying and that you may not be friends with your partners but you can get along in some ways.
  • I learned how to use glue guns, what materials are better and not just look better and how to find good solutions to problems but still keep close to the original design.
  • I learned how to use micro bits to control motors.
  • I learned how to use a saw correctly and I learned how to use a hot glue gun.
  • How to have fun and work at the same time while being in my zone.
  • How to make a iMovie video with voice over music and effects and to work in a team to create a machine with electronic components.
  • I learned that you can make anything out of quite a lot of materials and I learned that using iMovie is quite easy.

Makerspace Robot Progress Report

The biggies are making some great progress on their Model Robot Makerspace challenge.

The Challenge is to create a model Robot with elements of

  1. Movement
  2. Electricity
  3. Coding

The class was split into groups and has taken some very imaginative ideas and is turning then into reality.

The Robots

Bobara
A.D.A.M.
Ecco
Mike
Duck

 

Final finishing touches are being added and some video reports started.

A visit from Balmalloch Digital Leaders

Last week we had a visit from Balmalloch Digital Leaders. These primary seven children help pupils and teachers in Balmalloch with digital learning.

They wanted to learn a bit about how the Biggies have been using their micro:bit. The Biggies helped them through the setting up of their micro:bits with their iPads an we walked through making a Rock, Paper, Sissors game with them, like this:

We also demonstrated our micro:bit voting system. This is nearly working!

It was good fun working with pupils from another school and to share some of our skills.

Thanks to Mrs Grant for the header image in this post. As it was a dress down day you can’t tell which school the pupils come from.

Micro:bit Halloween Challange

We had our Halloween party on Friday afternoon, hopefully we will post some costume pictures next week. On Friday Morning the Biggies had a microbit coding challenge.

The idea was to make the micro:bit show a face on the pumpkin if one button was pressed, a ghost if the other one was pressed. The next part was to scare the ghost away with a noise.

As you can see from the video the pupils rose to the challenge.

Micro:bit dice

We had a short micro:bit lesson today. In maths everyone is quite enthusiastic about Dice Wars. making dice seemed like a good idea.

Some of the children even learnt how to embed the simulator to show their code on their e-Portfolios. I can borrow a few, with permission, to show you:

Here is Harry’s give it a shake.

And Hollie’s added a wee emoji check

Josh’s dice goes all the way up to 9!

For some of the class this was a bit of micro revision for others it was their first use of decision (if) Blocks.

here is the code Harry used:

Highlights of the week 23 Apr 2021

We have had a really busy week the first week back. The class are really working hard in their maths and literacy.

The Robots project is going well.

We had a walk down to Dow’s wood on Wednesday and Dows Wood VisitAmong other thing there were some amazing drawing done in a very short time:

Aaron combined his language & ice skills in the outdoors:

Arron's poem

The Primary Sevens had 2 challenges from Kilsyth Academy, we decided it would be a good idea for the sixes to join in. The first challenge involved designing a boat:

The second was to design a setting for Tunnock’s teacakes:

teacake designers The biggies have great imagination & design skills. The creature image is Alice’s she turned her Teacake upside down to make a campfire!

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