START A BITLearn the basics
The parts and ideas that come back in many projects, each explained once: what it is, how to recognise it, and how it works. Every project page shows the cards it needs.
Motion sensor (accelerometer)
The Micro:bit feels movement and tilt: the shake event and the acceleration numbers.
Addressable LEDs
LED strips where every LED has its own chip and number: how one data wire sets each colour, why power matters, and the key blocks and functions.
Team up with AI
AI can explain, find bugs, give ideas, draft code and learn from examples. You ask, AI suggests, you test, you decide: you stay the engineer.
Arduino libraries
Ready-made code that someone wrote and shared: how to install a library, include it and use its functions.
Breadboard
A board full of holes that connects parts without soldering: which holes are connected inside, and why the middle gap matters.
Buzzer
The small black cylinder that beeps: tone makes it sound at a pitch you choose, noTone makes it quiet again.
Circuit diagram
The wiring the way engineers draw it: every line is a wire, every part has a symbol. Read one in a book or on a website and build it.
Ultrasonic distance sensor
A click you cannot hear, its echo, and a stopwatch: how ultrasonic sensors measure, and our two kinds side by side, the HC-SR04 and the analog US-016.
Flow charts
Draw what a program does, step by step, with boxes, diamonds and arrows: the idea of a program without the blocks or the code.
LED
A light that only works one way round: how to find the long and the short leg, why it needs a resistor, and how a program turns it on and off.
Teach a computer with examples
Machine learning: instead of writing the rule, you show many examples and the computer finds the pattern. Then you test it on new ones.
Knob (potentiometer)
A knob with three legs that turns a position into a number from 0 to 1023: how to wire it and read it.
Push button
A button with four legs that sits across the middle gap: which legs belong together, and how a program reads it with pull up.
Radio between Micro:bits
Micro:bits talk to each other without wires: the radio group, sending a number, and reacting when one arrives.
Resistor
The small part with coloured bands that keeps the current small: why an LED needs one, and how to read 220 Ω from the colours.
Serial Monitor
How the Arduino talks to your computer: Serial.print sends numbers and words through the USB cable, and the Serial Monitor shows them.
Servo
A small motor with a gearbox that turns to an angle, or spins round: the two kinds, the three wires, and how a pin controls it.
State machine: what the program remembers
A state machine: a program that remembers which state it is in (closed, open, waiting) and changes state when something happens. Drawn as a state chart.