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BBC Micro Bit Mini-Computer To Expand Internationally With New Hardware (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the global-economy dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: The Micro Bit mini-computer is to be sold across the world and enthusiasts are to be offered blueprints showing how to build their own versions. The announcements were made by a new non-profit foundation that is taking over the educational project, formerly led by the BBC. About one million of the devices were given away free to UK-based schoolchildren earlier this year. Beyond the UK, Micro Bits are also in use in schools across the Netherlands and Iceland. But the foundation now intended to co-ordinate a wider rollout. "Our goal is to go out and reach 100 million people with Micro Bit, and by reach I mean affect their lives with the technology," said the foundations' new chief executive Zach Shelby. "That means [selling] tens of millions of devices... over the next five to 10 years." His organization plans to ensure Micro Bits can be bought across Europe before the end of the year and is developing Norwegian and Dutch-language versions of its coding web tools to boost demand. Next, in 2017, the foundation plans to target North America and China, which will coincide with an upgrade to the hardware. TrixX adds: The makers of the BBC micro:bit have announced that they are releasing the full specs for the device under an open license, (SolderPad License, similar to Apache License but for hardware). This means that anyone can legally use the specs and build their own device, or fork the reference design GitHub repo and design their derivatives.

40 comments

  1. Not a minicomputer by arth1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is not a minicomputer. It's a microcomputer. Thus the name.
    A minicomputer is typically the size of a small fridge, and were named so because they were much smaller than the big ones.

    1. Re:Not a minicomputer by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      A good way to refer to it would be as a picocomputer.

    2. Re:Not a minicomputer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beside storage space, the BBC:micro might actually be faster than the real minicomputers:)

    3. Re:Not a minicomputer by johnw · · Score: 1

      A minicomputer is typically the size of a small fridge,

      More the size of a large fridge. A small modern fridge is about the size of a PC. Towards the very end of the mini-computer era, DEC did produce some that kind of size, but your typical mini-computer occupied one to four cabinets, each about 4' or 6' tall. The term mini-computer distinguished them from mainframes, which tended to need a whole room.

    4. Re:Not a minicomputer by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

      Thank yoy, i was about to write the same, a more correct way to reffere to the Micro-bit would be as a small form facror computer or a single board computer, calling it a mini vomputer is just plain wrong. Signed. Grumpy 46 year old

    5. Re: Not a minicomputer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A small modern fridge is not the same size as a pc. Unless you have some kind of dimensional compression technology or a portable hole. Moore's law does not cover size constraints.

    6. Re:Not a minicomputer by hughbar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it's a micro-controller actually. One program at a time, no operating system, just load/run. It's therefore similar to the Arduino.

      As a Brit, I'm very annoyed by this, they could have just got behind the Arduino (for example) but no that was apparently NIH (Not Invented Here) so they've spent a lot of public money on this.

      I do a certain amount of school volunteering and this is another thing that fragments attention and class time. I would have preferred full-fat pupil owned Raspberry Pis for example, a little more expensive but an order of magnitude more capable. Still the BBC is a law unto itself.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    7. Re:Not a minicomputer by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      We used to call this a "single board computer" back in the day.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re: Not a minicomputer by johnw · · Score: 1

      A small modern fridge is not the same size as a pc.

      https://www.amazon.co.uk/Litre...

      Had the original poster said just "a fridge" then it would have been nearer the mark, but if you qualify it as a "small fridge" then this is the sort of thing which springs to mind.

    9. Re:Not a minicomputer by DrXym · · Score: 1

      I do a certain amount of school volunteering and this is another thing that fragments attention and class time. I would have preferred full-fat pupil owned Raspberry Pis for example, a little more expensive but an order of magnitude more capable. Still the BBC is a law unto itself.

      And a magnitude more of a pain in the ass to set up. To use this Pi, the pupil would require - a monitor or TV, an HDMI cable, a USB mouse & keyboard, a network connection or wifi dongle, a PSU, a charger, an SD card, and a very patient teacher and set of parents capable of setting this all up and transferring files for grading and exercises.

      The micro:bit needs a usb cable. It can be programmed with a smart phone, tablet or a computer. You don't even need to use a physical micro bit in because the software has an emulator. The student's work can be stored in the cloud so the teacher can review and mark pupil's work from a single screen.

      Frankly I don't understand why the micro:bit provokes these knee jerk reactions. Pupils who start on this device will naturally progress to the like of the Pi as their skills and knowledge increase. It's not an either / or situation.

    10. Re:Not a minicomputer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn... That means you are as old as I am.

    11. Re:Not a minicomputer by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      As a Brit, I'm very annoyed by this, they could have just got behind the Arduino (for example) but no that was apparently NIH (Not Invented Here) so they've spent a lot of public money on this.

      How much though?

      Thing is, it's not a complicated board. I actually work on bluetooth stuff for a living and knocking up a uC, accelerometer and a few other bits and bobs on a circuit board is very seriously not hard. It's sufficiently not hard that I did a custom one as a favour for someone recently. When I say it's really not hard, it's really not.

      Now, I've been using the CC2541 mostly for historic reasons. I've been meaning to jump over the nRF51 (used by the micro bit) and head straight for the nRF54 because HAVE YOU SEEN IT? Bloody awesome.

      That aside, the peanut gallery (i.e. me) would have done it differently. I'd have used a ST Micro electronics accelerometer not an Freescale one mostly because then I could use SPI which I prefer (I2C is squirly and flakey, and much lower power draw which is something I happen to care about) and because I've used various of the ST MEMS sensors, I know they work well, I'm familiar with the interface and so I'd not change unless there was a pressing reason.

      Anyway the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt as was the style at the time.

      But back to it.

      First, the arduino is great, don't get me wrong.

      However, this board is not an expensive one to develop. This way they get much more control and have all the peripherals they want which you'll note is a lot more out of the box. When the BBC do something, they also go in big, and this way lets them control the supply chain so there's not going to be any worry about sourcing, and sourcing exactly what they want when they want in whatever quantities they need.

      And those are large. They do (or did?) give them away to every yeat 7 pupil. That's about 700,000 per year, which as far as I can tell is about 3x the number of arduinos sold per year. And vastly more than any I/O shield. In other words they are so much larger than the entire arduino effort that it would require a complete revamp of the Arduino supply chain at which point, again, it's easier and simpler to simply do it themselves.

      It's also a much larger MCU than many of the arduinos and not AVR. The advantage of the latter is that sadly few people work in GCC-AVR compared to ARM, making it a slightly less reliable platform. And the larger MCU also allows for things like micropython.

      Of course they could use an ARM based arduino, but now you're dealing with a slightly fragmented platform and of course shields for the I/O. So they'd have to specify precise models (then deal with the fallout when people find cheaper ones which don't work) for both the controller and the shields, none of the latter of which do exactly what they want.

      So maybe they should have made their own shield, but by the time you're there you may as well shove an MCU on it and call it a day.

      In other words given the size and scale of what they're doing it was likely a better choice to make their own than try to cobble everything together with arduinos.

      I do a certain amount of school volunteering and this is another thing that fragments attention and class time. I would have preferred full-fat pupil owned Raspberry Pis for example, a little more expensive but an order of magnitude more capable.

      They are a *lot* more expensive. The RPi doesn't come with much out of the box. You need a PSU (many USB ports don't give out enough juice), an SD card, and probably a screen and keyboard to get going. This device is much more arduino like. They're not really comparable at all.

      Still the BBC is a law unto itself.

      The BBC's a huge organisation with many many interests. It's never going to be perfect and it's never going to do precisely the same as you.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    12. Re:Not a minicomputer by hughbar · · Score: 2

      And a magnitude more of a pain in the ass to set up. To use this Pi, the pupil would require - a monitor or TV, an HDMI cable, a USB mouse & keyboard, a network connection or wifi dongle, a PSU, a charger, an SD card, and a very patient teacher and set of parents capable of setting this all up and transferring files for grading and exercises.

      Actually I worked last year with one school that was successfully doing this. You don't really want switched-on smart phones in class, anyway, so you're obliged to hook the micro:bit to a 'computer' (of some kind), as with the Arduino if you want to do any programming.

      Also to continue being ranty, Microsoft has had a good look in this time, not surprising since the last two technology heads were biased in that direction. If they want to 'develop', everything, yes, everything (the thing itself and associated ecosystem) needs to be open source, because it's public cash.

      I did freelance work for the BBC in the early 2000s, but have stopped (my own choice) now.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    13. Re:Not a minicomputer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > As a Brit, I'm very annoyed by this, they could have just got behind the Arduino (for example) but no that was apparently NIH (Not Invented Here) so they've spent a lot of public money on this.

      Yeah - about that:

      How much is the BBC spending on this and why is it coming out of the licence fee?

      The BBC won't give exact figures on the costs - it says they're commercially sensitive - but says the vast majority is being covered by the partners in the project.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33427816

    14. Re:Not a minicomputer by hughbar · · Score: 1
      First, thanks for taking the time on this. I'm grateful for the detailed info on the guts of the thing.

      They are a *lot* more expensive. The RPi doesn't come with much out of the box. You need a PSU (many USB ports don't give out enough juice), an SD card, and probably a screen and keyboard to get going. This device is much more arduino like. They're not really comparable at all.

      Yes, I'm aware of that. Actually these are being pushed 'free' in limited numbers. But, actually, in pre-history the BBC Acorn computer (which was the beginning of ARM) was expensive too. I feel that qui peut le plus peut le moins who can do the most can do the least is a good way to do it, too.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    15. Re:Not a minicomputer by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      But, actually, in pre-history the BBC Acorn computer (which was the beginning of ARM) was expensive too.

      True: it was about 5x the price of a ZX81 for example, though of course they weren't given away to pupils, they were destined for classroom use and the BBC Micro was much, much more physically robust than a ZX81.

      I suppose what matters most is what the intended (and actual) use of the devices are and unfortunately it sounds a little half-cocked in the case of the Micro:bit.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    16. Re:Not a minicomputer by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Actually I worked last year with one school that was successfully doing this. You don't really want switched-on smart phones in class, anyway, so you're obliged to hook the micro:bit to a 'computer' (of some kind), as with the Arduino if you want to do any programming.

      You're not obliged to hook up the micro:bit to a computer. As I said it can be a smartphone, tablet or computer. It presents a range of options both for classwork and homework that aren't there for the Pi. When they go home they can make use of what's available, be it a phone, tablet or computer. At the school they could use tablets or computers.

      Objectively, setting up a Pi is way more effort in almost every way.

      As for Microsoft, yes they got a look-in but so what? Kids program in a Scratch-a-like or in Javascript. The development tools run on pretty much on any mobile device or computer. I don't think Microsoft are being especially nefarious.

    17. Re:Not a minicomputer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...qui peut le plus peut le moins..."
      That's one of those French phrases that after many years still doesn't have a proper English equivalent. Possibly it has to do with Agincourt, (Next Tuesday is St. Crispin's Day....), where a vastly outnumbered Henry V and his Band Of Brothers decisively won the Battle. They could have then marched on Paris, and decisive All-Out War, but they went home instead, leaving the two main factions in France to then enjoy Civil War, on and off, for another three decades. (Maybe they should have continued on to Paris...)
      That is, until the Battle of Castillon, where France finally united, and kicked the Beefsteaks out. England then enjoyed their own uncivil War Of the Roses for yet another three decades. (It was another three Centuries, and the formation of their own United Kingdom, and some Scurvy at Sea, before the English became known as Limeys.) But this was a singular characteristic of the 100 Years War. No historical Perspective. No concept of Mighty Oaks, from little Acorns grow.

      Perhaps the closest in original meaning would be this:
      "Take care of the Pounds, and the Pennies take care of themselves"..., no, that's not right, is it? How about:

      " ... Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."

      Captcha: yielded

    18. Re:Not a minicomputer by arth1 · · Score: 1

      More the size of a large fridge. A small modern fridge is about the size of a PC. Towards the very end of the mini-computer era, DEC did produce some that kind of size, but your typical mini-computer occupied one to four cabinets, each about 4' or 6' tall.

      The first popular minicomputer, the PDP/8, was not that big - about 6U size, I'd guess?
      Of course, to be useful, you would normally combine it with a couple of side-by-side upright expansion chassies stacked on top, like for tape drive and IO, which would triple or quadruple the height.

    19. Re:Not a minicomputer by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Here is an ad from Digital from that time, showing the size in a familiar perspective.

    20. Re:Not a minicomputer by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      As a Brit, I'm very annoyed by this, they could have just got behind the Arduino (for example) but no that was apparently NIH (Not Invented Here) so they've spent a lot of public money on this.

      Why would you be upset about a segment of the government that is self sustaining and funded from their own licenses building a system that is far simpler to start with and developed relationships with groups that will ultimately be key to getting this to work.

      Do you think they spent public money developing a board? That can be done in an afternoon by a university student. What they spent money on is partnerships and contracts which would have been identical if not more expensive had they gone the Arudino route.

      Also what would your reaction have been 6 months ago? Anger that the BBC adopted a commercial product that was suffering from a legal battle among as far as anyone can see itself, with two competing yet identical platforms that inexplicably had compatibility issues with otherwise compatible hardware just because legal reasons?

      There are some very good reasons for NIH approaches. The alternative is the US based education system brought to you by the writers of overpriced textbooks, calculators who have defied the laws of physics and are still as dumb and expensive as they were 20 years ago, and a curriculum designed by private corporations, for a fee of course. I wish more of the education system took the NIH approach.

      I would have preferred full-fat pupil owned Raspberry Pis for example

      Getting angry about the money spent by the BBC, but you're okay adopting a platform that's almost an order of magnitude more expensive? And before you say Pi zero maybe look at the timelines for development.

    21. Re:Not a minicomputer by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I don't think Microsoft are being especially nefarious.

      The first rule of Slash Club is that Microsoft are always wrong.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    22. Re:Not a minicomputer by hughbar · · Score: 1

      No, not necessarily, but I don't agree with seeing them in the middle of this particular project. Commercial enterprise, just fine.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
  2. Deployment by itamblyn · · Score: 2

    The rest of the article is actually pretty interesting. It sounds like there wasn't a clear plan (or at least the teachers weren't onboard) about how to work these into the classroom. OLPC had this problem too - tech people thought you could just hand out shiny things and everything would work out. It frequently doesn't work like this in the education setting. To be clear, BBC:Micro bit is really neat, and I think it will be useful, but it seems like figuring out how to effectively use stuff like this in the classroom continues to be a hard problem.

    1. Re:Deployment by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      A better programming game for students to practice on is a clone of the 'Sims', tied into a programming language to tweak and control their behaviour. You have a wide range of complexity, you can also teach social issues plus simulate all those various other activities of changing from a child to becoming an adult. Traffic rules and controls come into play, managing a household, economic management can be modelled etc.

      The programming of human relatable activity, would promote learning. Being more graphically accurate would allow more graphics development (creation of 3d models with learning of associated applications for arts student to demonstrate their skills) and student modification of say a shared classroom simulation, a shared grade simulation and a shared school simulation.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Deployment by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re " how to effectively use stuff like this in the classroom continues to be a hard problem."
      The problem is teaching math and science and now computing to all students and hoping to get different results.
      A generation of teachers want to be seen as been inclusive so the whole class has to slow down and write code, create apps, build robots.
      The new idea is to get entire grades all learning "computers" and "code" so they can all have an equal chance at enjoying math and all write apps or build robots.
      Just like with the early computers, desktop publishing, "internet", games, laptops, tablets as past educational fads over the decades.
      The shock to the UK was in the late 1970-80's with the US tech gap and the origin of ARM. The UK pushed education, ARM, networks in classrooms, games, science.
      Did it educate the whole nation and make the UK some computer tech hub to equal or out pace the USA?
      Only the very best students did as well in the 1960-2000's and got to the top.
      After all the spending, hype and support the bulk of the students knew of a computer and enjoyed playing games, could do their taxes with a computer, knew of a GUI. Some might recall Basic, Ada, java or pascal years later.
      Most of the students would have been more happy with the funding going to vocational work, arts, music, sport, cooking, tourism, local business.
      The rush for computers became Microsoft and Apple, the chips Intel and Motorola. The UK produced games but that was for global consumption on other nations hardware and software.
      Another generation of UK educators want to spend big on hardware and support. Somehow this will make more average people interested in science and more will pass easy exams together. The UK will be better as more very average students get to be happy about understanding how to "robot" or "app".
      They will then consume Web 2.0, Google, Microsoft and Apple as they always did.
      Think of British Leyland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... but for educational apps and robots.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re: Deployment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We had the BBC micros in school in the 80s and that is the approach they took then.
      Theyvhooked them up to a mechanical set called loco (if I remember right) that allowed you to drive little car thingies with the BBC.

      Was very cool for the time

  3. Is it bit-slicing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Micro Bit gave me impression that is may be bit-slicing.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_slicing

  4. Re:Why would anyone want to associate with BBC? by brantondaveperson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "The announcements were made by a new non-profit foundation that is taking over the educational project, formerly led by the BBC."

    So, it's not even the BBC anymore. And during the world's various wars, all media companies got themselves involved in propaganda. It's not as though anyone who was in charge of the BBC then, is in charge of it now.

    What "current actions"?

  5. Now THAT is an oxymoron by Ryyuajnin · · Score: 1

    BBC Micro bit... Ridiculous!

  6. Re:Why would anyone want to associate with BBC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They haven't been sufficiently grovelling towards the current crop of Tories in power. The clue is the "lefty elite" in the post. It's a load of bollocks, of course.

  7. The kids love it by SirJorgelOfBorgel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My girlfriend works with kids in the target age group, they love playing around with this. Their web code tools aren't half bad either - my girlfriend now understands the basics of code (so this is what you do all day eh? well, not exactly...)

    1. Re:The kids love it by NoNeeeed · · Score: 1

      I was pretty sceptical about the Micro bit when it was announced. It seemed under-specced compared to all the other small board computers out there.

      I was wrong. Talking to people who actually use them to teach, they (teachers and kids) love them. The combination of the on-board screen, accelerometer etc, and the toolchain all combine to make it really quick to get going and build something simple but fun. Like the old 8-bit micros, you can get going almost instantly.

      Obviously they have limits, and something like an Arduino or Pi is going to be more use for bigger projects, but for teaching kids the basics and letting them have fun with them the Bit is great. These are designed as a first step, and that's what they are good at.

      --
      Paul Leader
  8. Re:Why would anyone want to associate with BBC? by jandersen · · Score: 1

    They haven't been sufficiently grovelling towards the current crop of Tories in power.

    Not to mention that to a certain segment of humanity, the Tories themselves are a bunch of bleeding-heart socialists. It isn't possible to reason with that kind of people, but on the other hand, it is important that those of us who are not as unhinged, stand up and speak out against the nut-cases.

  9. Rocket cars? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    "A lot of projects in Stem [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] are oftentimes aimed at boys - rocket cars for example," commented Mr Shelby.

    Is Mr. Shelby from Saudi Arabia? :-p

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  10. Re:Why would anyone want to associate with BBC? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    BBC (state owned war mongering propaganda network of British lefty elite)

    And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why the UK voted Brexit.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  11. Re:Why would anyone want to associate with BBC? by jandersen · · Score: 1

    Unlike you, I don't cower behind AC.