Microcontrollers
Below are some microcontrollers you may want to explore with your students. These microcontrollers need to be coded with technological devices.
Adafruit Flora
The Adafruit Flora is a sewable microcontroller. It comes with micro-USB support making it easy to program. It is round, light, and robust with a large circuit board to play with. It can be used to animate lights, make sounds, and coordinate patterns. It works best with Arduino IDE software and conductive thread.
Adafruit Gemma
The Adafruit Gemma is a tiny, wearable platform board similar to the Flora. It is a sewable microcontroller that can be programmed over micro-USB using Arduino IDE software. It is smaller than the Flora and has less connections so is better suited to simpler or smaller projects.
Arduino
Arduinos are the quintessential microcontroller. They come in many shapes and sizes and are very inexpensive. The main difference between an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi is that the former can only process one program at a time whereas the latter can process many programs at once. While the Arduino may be simpler, it is also less expensive. Programs are written and run using the Arduino software.
Lilypad Arduino Sewable Electronics Kit
This box set comes with a variety of sewable electronics devices and components. The kit comes with two LilyPad ProtoSnap boards along with buttons, switches, and LEDs. Complete with an instruction manual containing four complete sewable circuit projects, this is the ideal kit for a beginner starting out.
Makey Makey
The Makey Makey is a microcontroller that lets you connect to everyday objects. It has a simple interface for connecting conductive materials (like bananas, water, tin foil, etc.) to basic functions on a computer’s keyboard. There is also a reversible side that contains many more ports so you can expand into more advanced circuit-based projects. Great for demonstrating how conductivity works with young children.
Micro:bit
The micro:bit was designed by the BBC for use in the UK education system. It is very affordable, small, and versatile. To use it, the MakeCode website provides a block programming interface that is easy to use. It features interesting sensors like accelerometers, photosensitive LEDs, and even a radio emitter.
Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is known as the world’s cheapest computer. It doubles as a microcontroller which makes this device useful for a wide variety of projects or personal activities. Its main advantage is that it can process more than one program at a time. It has WiFi and HDMI and is fast enough to surf the web but can also be adapted for highly specific goals like building an arcade cabinet or a magic mirror. It runs on the operating system Linux instead of iOS (Apple) or Windows (PC). It can be used to create media using SonicPi. You can also connect sensors so that it can interact with the environment.
