Book Image

BBC Micro:bit in Practice

By : Ashwin Pajankar, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Saini
Book Image

BBC Micro:bit in Practice

By: Ashwin Pajankar, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Saini

Overview of this book

This book is a one-stop guide for learning BBC Micro:bit with MicroPython, exploring many hardware components and programming techniques to provide detailed insights into developing practical applications with the Micro:bit. It will also show you how hardware components can be manipulated using a combination of Micro:bit and MicroPython for developing practical projects. BBC Micro:bit in Practice will help you gain a holistic understanding of the BBC Micro:bit platform and MicroPython programming, guiding you through mini projects aimed at developing practical knowledge of circuit design and writing programs. You’ll learn how to write programs for working with built-in LEDs and buttons, interfacing external LEDs, buttons, motors, buzzers, and much more. You’ll also work with built-in radio, speakers, accelerometer, and a compass. You’ll dive into concepts related to the Micro:bit filesystem, interfacing external displays, and working with libraries in detail before exploring sewable circuits and wearable technology. After reading this Micro:bit book, you’ll understand how to apply principles in electronics and MicroPython to create interesting real-life projects from scratch.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with the BBC Micro:bit
6
Part 2: Programming Hardware with MicroPython
10
Part 3: Filesystems and Programming Analog I/O
13
Part 4: Advanced Hardware Interfacing and Applications

Light sensor

The Micro:bit V2 is a sensor-rich board. We know that there are 25 LEDs on the front to display anything using a combination of these LEDs. These 25 LEDs also have built-in light sensors to detect the intensity of light falling on them. The intensity of the light falling on these LEDs is read between 0 to 255. This means the highest intensity value will be read as 255, and the complete darkness will be read as 0. All the intensities in between are equally spaced in between these values.

Figure 14.4 shows the location of the light sensors on a Micro:bit:

Figure 14.4 – Position of light sensors on a Micro:bit (courtesy: https://microbit.org/projects/make-it-code-it/sunlight-sensor/)

Important note

No fixed formula relates the intensity of light with the value. It will completely depend on our observations and adjustments for it to work properly with the light intensity values.

Let us write some simple code that will read the light...