Robots and Physical Computing

I have been having a first play with a SPOKE capacitive touch controller board. At the time of writing, it is available from Pimoroni at: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/spoke-capacitive-touch-controller-board?variant=56217676382587 This is not a full review, more a first-impressions note after getting it connected and trying a few of the web-based examples. The short version is: it worked, it was fun, and there was one small setup detail that was worth noting if you are using a mac neo. The SPOKE board is a capacitive touch controller. In practice, that means you can touch parts of the board and use those touches as inputs. One of the interesting things about it is that it can act as a MIDI controller, so immediately my mind went to sound, music, GarageBand, and possibly coding experiments later on. image taken from  https://www.spokeboard.com/ The place to start is the SPOKE website: https://www.spokeboard.com/ On the site, there is a very useful route labelled “Have your SPOK...

20-minute primary activity: Seeing the physical world as data with microbit This is a short classroom or STEM-club activity for primary children using a pre-prepared BBC micro. The aim is not to spend the session building the whole data logger, but to let children quickly see that a small device can measure the physical world and show those measurements changing on a screen. This activity builds on two earlier posts: DIY Data Science with microbits , especially Method 1, the “Direct Link” approach, and Detecting and logging magnetism with a microbit . These have a lot more detail on what is going on and why. This activity has been used and refined with 12 groups of up to 15 children at a time. I would suggest getting them into groups of 2-3 around a computer and a microbit. What you need 1 micro, already programmed in MakeCode blocks USB cable connected to a computer MakeCode open in a Chrome-based browser A small magnet or set of magnets A torch, phone light, or simply a way of coveri...