calliope

Got myself a micro:bit :)

Written by  on March 12, 2018

After gaining some experience with the Calliope mini I was eager to have look over the edge of the plate and found the Sino:bit with an even bigger matrix of 144 LED. BUT: there is still the humble predecessor, the BBC micro:bit. A very original and clever project to get ALL children at school started. At a price of around 17€ what can go wrong? Give ten children one for free and even if just one turns into a programmer/software-developer (or just gains a bit insight how their favorite electronic gadgets work), then it was worth but. But what do I say as german citizen. Hello Flugtaxi :’|
I plan to get my feet into the cold and muddy waters of robotics. Of course, assembling the :move mini with the bulldozer add-on will be nothing great, but I’ve craved to find out how to control a servo and how to put some life into the boring aspects of programming. Just kidding. But blinking LED and measuring values is nice, but … I want to build my own cat-feeder. Or at least something which moves and blinks to keep them a bit attracted.
And: the micro:bit and Calliope mini feature both Bluetooth-radios, so connecting them shouldn’t be a problem.
Another advantage: somehow the given libraries for the micro:bit are more advanced and diverse than the Calliope’s, could be due to the release in 2015 versus 2017. Also: micro:bit features microPython. C not ..

My first idea was to create a stress-test. Play a bit around with the buttons and the “run in background”-feature. Still not heating properly and fast enough.
Code is visible on my micro:bit-repository on github. Just like the one for the Calliope. Suggestions how to make the processing unit glow are heartily accepted 🙂

Let us get coding. Somehow I like the enviroment with blocks and the possibility to switch to Javascript. Not my favorite dialect, but … sometimes you have to embrace what is given to you <3

20 min-project of today: creepy squirrel

Written by  on December 1, 2017

Had in mind to play around with the “make LED shine directly via PIN”-feature of the Calliope Mini. Worked, nice 🙂
Actually for both “eyes” it is randomnly picked if they shall light up (and down) separately, but the GIF can can last just 3 seconds.

applied science ;3

Written by  on October 28, 2017

The surface-temperature of an average ~furry lazybutt~ housecat is 24°C 😀

For this important experiment you need: a Calliope Mini, a computer science-degree and too much free time ;’)
Just kidding, the code is quite simple:

Jubilate deo!

Written by  on July 4, 2017

Ok, today arrived the Calliope mini and after doing all my chores I spent one hour tinkering with the tiny star 🙂
An improved version of one of the suggested projects: the first part of “Ode to joy” from Beethoven together with a blasting animation. Start by pressing “A”.

Calliope mini

Written by  on May 30, 2017

Ordered me a Calliope mini today. This is some micro-controller-project from several german instituations to allow pupils beginning from early grades to lay their hands on something similar to a Raspberry Pi. After playing around with the code-generator (one of them ..) I placed my order. 35 € is for the given package (board + periphery) ‘average’, but I am interested in how easy it would be to teach someone (;)) completely programming-unaware how to “do this”.

My first example from the code-gen ():