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About the Course
micro:bit Maker is a 1 day course, designed to give younger students (9-13 years) a taster of programming and electronics, using a series of fun projects on a BBC micro:bit, an a few simple external components. This course is part of the 'Maker Week' series including 3D Maker, Laser Maker and micro:bit Maker.
We're trying to get the students to:
- Quickly build lots of fun projects
- Understand the basic concepts of programming using a drag and drop editor
- Have an introduction to the micro:bit and the possibilities of things it can do
- Learn how to make basic electrical connections and simple circuits
Health and Safety
As well as the rest of this guide, please also see:
General Workshops Risk Assessment
The Kit List
Student consumables (one per student to take home)
- BBC micro:bit
- Battery pack and 2 batteries
- 2 red and 2 black crocodile clip wires
- Micro USB cable
- USB stick wristband (if a camper is doing multiple maker courses or Maker Week, they should only get 1!)
- 50cm and 15cm length of aluminium rod (steady hand game)
- Small piece of blutack
- 1 buzzer
- 0.5m of aluminium tape
- micro:bit Maker stamp card
- Large ziploack bag for taking everything home
Maker Week Shared Class Kit
- Maker Week course badge (1 per student doing whole week of Maker courses)
- Laser cutter, extractor, PSU, platen and USB cable
- Laptop with EleksCam installed for running laser cutter
- 2x 5m extension leads
- 1x 4 way power board, + 2 per 8 campers
- 1 safety mat per student
- 1 set headphones per student
- 100 sheets A4 paper, and 10 per student
- 1 pencil per student (and 2 spare)
- 1 rubber per 2 students
- 1 ruler between 2 students
- 1 pair of scissors between 2 students
- 1 set of felt tips between 4 students
- 1 pencil sharpener between 4 students
- 1 roll double sided tape per 4 students
- 1 Tech Camp Stamp per tutor
- Roll of bin bags
- 1 set dry wipe pens
- 2 permanent markers
Preparing Yourself
Like any practical course you'll find this much easier to teach if you have run through it yourself as completely as possible first.
As a minimum, you'll need to:
- Read through this guide completely and be comfortable with it
- Run through the student's guide completely, building all of the projects using the make:code IDE - we will send you a kit of hardware in advance of the camp.
As the start of this course is tutor-led you'll also need to run through your delivery of the course a couple of times - ideally out loud, but at least in your head. If you are working with more than one tutor, you will want to decide between yourselves how to split the tasks/explanations in this initial part of the lesson.
Tutor Training Day
When you arrive for the tutor training day (at Winchester this will be before the students arrive, for other camps it will be a number of weeks before the first camp), we will go through some general things (like child protection training), but the bulk of the day will be on preparing yourself for teaching the course.
What will I receive?
If you are working at a non-residential venue you will receive a full set of parts, which will allow you to complete all parts of the course.
If you are working at a residential venue, you will not receive any parts, however you will still be able to go through the student guides and try creating all of the programs yourself. There will be ample equipment and time to try out the projects during the first few days at camp.
How will we check that you are prepared?
We will expect you to:
- Explain to us some of the concepts in the tutor guide - i.e. you need to be able to tell us how the course is organised, what some of the important points are about safety and efficiently operating the courses, and be able to answer questions about these things intelligently!
- We'll ask you to show us some of your programs, and some of the more complex circuits using your kit of parts.
- We will ask you to run through the delivery of the start of the course, as detailed at the end of this guide, as if you were delivering the course for real.
What will we show you?
- You should have been able to try out everything in the student guides - we will of course be able to answer any further questions you may have, and give you some tips and tricks to improve your delivery of the course.
Pre-Camp Setup (By Tech Camp)
- Cut aluminium rod into 50cm and 15cm sections
- Cut aluminium tape into 50cm sections
- Cut blutack into 1/10 of a pack pieces
IT Systems Check
- Sound and USB ports functional on computers
- Student logins work for this website (login details for students on this page)
- Check following websites are available:
- makecode.microbit.org/
- courses.techcamp.org.uk
Pre-Course Setup
- Lay out micro:bit, battery pack, batteries and USB cable and stamp card by each computer.
It works best if you give out the other components as they are required - this allows you to explain what the components are and makes sure that students don't start later activities before they have finished the previous ones!
Rules for Students
This course is primarily delivered by a number of tutorials. For this to work well, the students should:
- Carefully follow the guides, and be sure to read the information on them before asking for help!
- Be careful with all of their parts - if they lose them, they should look carefully in the surrounding area and on the floor before being given any spares, as there will be a very limited number available.
- Be sure to save each program on their memory sticks so they don't lose them.
Guidelines for Tutors
- The online editor can crash, and they might lose their work - make sure they are saving all of their downloaded files to their memory sticks so they don't lose anything.
- There should be plenty of activities and projects for even the most competent camper not to run out of things to do during the day. If younger ones don't manage to finish all of the projects, don't worry - they can continue working at home as they of course take everything with them at the end.
- Try to make sure that campers don't rush through the projects without completing them properly - in this situation they might run out of things to do! The stamp cards should help with that - see below.
- The stamp cards are designed to allow you to track the campers' progress through the course, and to give them a sense of achievement when they finish a project. Explain that they are not to start the next project until you have checked their current project and they have made it work - only then do they get a stamp next to the relevant activity and can they move on to the next one. Get them to write their name on their stamp card when you give them their first stamp.
- Make sure they don't leave their micro:bits plugged into the battery packs and powered up during breaks, or when they are not in use - this will run down the batteries which should in theory last the day easily otherwise.
- Use the permanent marker to name their plastic bags, so they can keep track of their parts
Running the Session
- Tutors introduce themselves / kids introduce themselves
- Explain about the micro:bit, what it can do, and why it was created (easily available on google)
- Explain the structure of the course, and get them excited by quickly explaining some of the cooler projects and doing some demos with some programmed micro:bits
- Explain how the online documentation system works, how the guides are laid out and how they should carefully read the instructions before asking for help
- Explain about stamp cards
- Show them how to login to the system and get them started on the first project
Packing Up
- Make sure all of the campers take home all of their equipment in their named plastic bags.
- Any spares should be in bags (not loose in the box), and any broken parts in a separate bag clearly labelled. One or two things that are broken or have been broken for unavoidable reasons is no problem, but lots of broken items (especially microbits) should be reported to the Technical Manager ASAP so it can be avoided in the future.