MicroBlocks with Bernat Romagosa

08/03/20 • 21 min

KidsLab - a podcast for parents and educators passionate about STEAM education

This episode features an interview with Bernat Romagosa about MicroBlocks, which can be used to program common educational boards such as the BBC micro:bit, Calliope Mini or the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express.

So what is MicroBlocks all about? MicroBlocks is a new programming language inspired by Scratch, that runs right inside microcontroller boards such as the BBC micro:bit, the Calliope Mini or Adafruit’s Circuit Playground Express.

After installing the MicroBlocks editor and flashing the MicroBlocks firmware once, you can quickly upload new code or change existing programs - it’s just takes a second. Of course, the usual suspects for visual coding blocks are available, such as various logic blocks, loops, blocks for controlling the input and output of the micro:bit such as the input pins and LEDs or various math blocks.

Previous Episode

DroneBlocks with Dennis Baldwin

This episode features an interview with Dennis Baldwin, the creator of DroneBlocks. DroneBlocks teaches STEM and the real-world application of drone technology.

Droneblocks is block-based programming for drones. After connecting the Wifi of a Laptop. Tablet or Smartphone, the students can connect to the drone and run their missions. Missions are sets of blocks, typically beginning with a takeoff, followed by various commands such as fly forward, yaw right, etc. and finally - of course - you want to land the drone. With drones such as the Ryzerobotics Tello and some indoor propeller guards, you can easily perform an indoor workshop with a whole class of kids.

Next Episode

Blockly with Neil Fraser

In this episode I am talking to Neil Fraser, the inventor of Blockly. Blockly is a JavaScript library for building visual programming editors.

Neil works as a software engineer at Google in Mountain View, California, USA - for more than a decade. In his spare time he’s an active maker and tinkerer and also created a variety of open source software.

Neil is also the initial creator of Blockly - a JavaScript library for building visual programming editors. We’ve covered block-based, visual programming in quite a few episodes now, but one can really say that Blockly has had a huge impact on the edtech world, if not even THE biggest impact.

Block-based programming uses interlocking blocks to create code, that means there is no syntax to get wrong such as in text-based coding. Block-based coding is a great way for kids - but also their parents and teachers - to learn about computer programming. The colorful blocks and the built-in validation mechanisms make it easy to create functional programs while reducing the issues that beginners often have.