Workshop: Collaboration without catastrophe: Experience building bigger, cooler, simpler collaborative projects using micro:bits, MicroPython, and radio messaging

This is a proposal for a Education Summit workshop for educators (Sunday, 50 mins). (This was accepted, but in the end we only ran the corresponding youth-day workshop.)

Proposal details

##What is your session about? Are you looking for cool, non-trivial project ideas for your micro:bit or Python class or club?

Are you looking for a way to have your micro:bit beginners contribute really meaningful pieces to a bigger whole, without the wiring getting more complex, without the code getting messier, and without risking the whole thing falling apart?

Or do you just like playing racing games with neopixel lights, shiny buttons, and bleepy-bloop sound effects?

In this workshop we will use radio messaging between micro:bits to add sound effects, music, and remote-controllers to an existing, exciting two-player NeoPixel light-racing game!

We’ll make and customise the controllers ourselves (a quick hands-on “make” with kitchen foil, cardboard, and croc-clips!), and we’ll code in MicroPython (it looks just like Python 3).

This activity has been so successful when we’ve run it with kids that really we want to share it with other educators!

As educators, we’ll complete the same activities the kids would. We’ll see that a divide-and-conquer approach using radio messaging between components allows for individuals to easily contribute simple pieces to the larger shared whole, at their own speed, without dependencies on each other, and without creating one giant, hard-to-understand, bug-ridden program. Easier coding? Check. Easier wiring? Check. More free pins on our micro:bit? Check!

Note 1: This workshop is best suited for educators who have at least a little experience in Python / MicroPython, or another text-based language. Micro:bit experience is NOT required.

Note 2: We won’t be programming the actual NeoPixels in this workshop, but we have made the relevant code and build instructions for that part publicly available for anyone to reuse and learn from.

Is there anything else we should know about your proposal?

We recommend the maximum number of participants for this workshop is 12. We could stretch to 14 if necessary.

A version of this workshop for young coders has also been submitted.

An early (MakeCode) version of this activity was run very successfully at the London Science Museum’s first CoderDojo by our group, and at Camden CLC’s after-school “Hack Club” (in this workshop form).

Can you give us an outline of your proposed session?

@-05mins: Welcome the arriving workshop participants, let them know they’re in the right place, and learn about their programming experience in python and in micro:bit (if any), and their teaching/mentoring experience. Start to learn their names!

[START]

@00mins: Invite people to play the game (in its core form - without sound and without remote controllers). Let everyone have a quick turn. YES, this is before any introductions have been made!

@03mins: Ask the audience to identify problems with the game, and areas for improvement. Two things inevitably come up: its lack of sound, and the fact that the crocodile clips can come loose when two players excitedly mash the microbit’s buttons.

@04mins: Ask the audience about sound effects in other racing games they know: what are the sounds during the starting lights of Mario Kart? What other sound effects we might try to add to the game? This develops a rough spec for the sound effect part of the workshop.

@05mins: Confirm with the audience that they agree it would be easier to play if you had remote controls like on a video game console. Ask how many buttons each controller would need. This develops a rough spec the remote controller “make” part of the workshop.

@06mins: Finally, welcome everyone to the workshop and introduce the presenters. Announce that they’ll experience the workshop activities just as the kids would: adding sound effects and remote controllers to the game and playing it at the end! Set expectations: it’s a short workshop so most people will just get one or the other done, of their choice, but not both.

@07mins: If we haven’t already, find out roughly everyone’s experience levels. Know your audience.

@08mins: everyone get a micro:bit and start coding through the following tasks:

• Simplest micropython program: show an icon on screen on start
• show everyone how to download the program onto their microbit
• Show everyone how to connect to a battery pack and disconnect from the main computer to emphasise its complete independence.
• Sending a radio message to a pre-existing shared listener micro:bit: have it send your name when your micro:bit starts. This one can speak the messages sent to it out loud.
• Receiving a radio message: display each message sent (including some from a class-wide micro:bit)
• Stopping the crazy radio chatter: how to change radio group! (get into informal pairs / threes)
• Responding to button presses: send a different message for button a and button b
• Have everyone move about room experimenting with sending their radio signals, on battery power.
• Tip: How to use the REPL (likely from Mu) to make experimentation easier.

@20mins: SPLIT the participants into two groups: sound effects and controller-makers. (It does not matter if one group is much larger than the other.)

THE SOUND EFFECT GROUP

sfx@21mins: Sound effect makers meet the music API:

• Where’s the documentation?
• Play a musical note via the REPL
• Play two musical notes on button a, b pressed
• Show how to connect headphones to the micro:bit
• Play a prebuilt melody
• Tool-creation: write a program to listen for received numbers and show them on screen
• Investigation: Play the game and watch what numbers are being broadcast during play. Write them down in provided table.
• Give out complete reference sheet once everyone’s had a try

sfx@30mins: start designing and coding YOUR sound effects.

• Optionally use the shared MIDI keyboard to pick notes.
• Beginners can use an if statement in python to only play a sound if the received number matches the event of interest.
• Help more experienced python programmers to consider other options (dictionary?)

• Once you have coded sounds for the just the starting-light sequence, TEST YOUR WORK, and make sure you have a backup.

• Bonus challenge: add victory tunes for player 1 win, player 2 win
• Bonus challenge: use the text-to-speech module to say “ready”, “steady”, “go!”
• Bonus challenge: add little sounds that play whenever the players go forward
• Bonus challenge: (for a musically inclined pair): respond to the events with short two-part harmony or counterpoint.

sfx@40mins: final touches

THE REMOTE-CONTROLLER ‘MAKE’ GROUP

rc@21mins: remote-controller group make simplest controller

• Learn about the game’s expected inputs (which radio messages will control it)
• Send number 1 on button A, send number 2 on button B
• Test it out with the premade listeners/debuggers
• Test it out with the main game
• Add shake-to-start

rc@30mins: Make a better controller from kitchen-foil, cardboard, bluetack, and croc clips

• Show completing a circuit from p0 to gnd will trigger an event in the microbit. Just tap croc clips together to do this - stress not to short 3v to gnd.
• Have everyone show something on screen on pin1 touched, and on pin2 touched
• Test by tapping croc clips
• Show how we can make this circuit with kitchen foil and human, instead.
• Organise roughly into pairs to make some sets of p1 controller and p2 controller separately (odd numbers is fine)
• Spec: send number 1 (or 2) when “pin1 is touched”, depending on which player’s controller you’re making
• TEST on the real game!
• Make a backup of your code. (Contingency: everyone’s controllers can use the same program for this section if necessary)

rc@40mins:

• Decorate and customise your controller with felt-pen, stickers, etc, so that it is unique. Tweet it!

• Bonus challenge (easy): add a button to send the “start game” code.
• Bonus challenge (medium): put a cheat into your controller: shake should make you move really fast.

ALL

@45mins: ALL REGROUP to play the game together!

• Have participants take it in turns to play the game using their own custom modules, and with other people’s. Encourage tweeting photos/videos of their work.

@47mins: discussion

Reflection, discussion, and ideas for further work:

• Was it better with sound effects and remote-controllers? What else might we add?
• Why didn’t we have to change (or even reboot) the game to add these sounds and controllers?
• What was the effect of one participant’s contribution breaking, or being buggy? Did it break the whole? What impact did it have on others’ work? Was it difficult to fix?
• What issues do the educators think they would have with a classroom full of kids all doing the activity at once? Particularly the noisy sound-creation part?
• What happens when everyone’s microbit responds with sfx at the same time? What would happen if they all played harmonies? A micro:bit choir coordinated by radio messages! (Show demo of micro:bit harmoniser)
• What else you could use these “remote controls” for? Show examples (slides and some live demos).
• What projects you might add sound effects to?
• Discuss what other games you could make with a strip of NeoPixels.

Propose a forum for further discussion.

@50mins: Congratulate everyone and thank them (just because they are educators doesn’t mean this was easy for them!) Request feedback. Say goodbye. (Give tiny handout with URL with a web-page with information for further work, links to support materials, and library documentation, and our simple online feedback form.)

@51mins: chase to next workshop

What are your equipment and other requirements? Computers with which to program the micro:bits. Ideally with Mu installed and tested.

USB leads and battery packs for the micro:bits.

The workspace shouldn’t be too noisy to hear our young coders.

This talk is suitable for teachers.