Forum - Recent Threads

RE: CodeBug

gadget.iom — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 13:38:54 GMT

shabaz wrote:

Also CodeBug is quite a limited product.. it may be better to go with micro:bit these days maybe, there's way more classroom material for it and is probably easier to teach with, it costs about the same, and will get more interest from kids maybe - just an opinion.

Completely agree!

A great place to start would be the micro:bit space here: micro:bit

CodeBug

davidlockett — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 01:42:58 GMT

Are there CodeBug grants or donations for classroom teachers?

RE: CodeBug

shabaz — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 23:59:11 GMT

Hi David,

Also CodeBug is quite a limited product.. it may be better to go with micro:bit these days maybe, there's way more classroom material for it and is probably easier to teach with, it costs about the same, and will get more interest from kids maybe - just an opinion.

RE: CodeBug

clem57 — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 03:13:26 GMT

davidlockett I assume you are a teacher or have something to do with students. If the goal is to equip the classroom with CodeBug lets say, maybe you are asking the wrong question. Here is a site https://doublethedonation.com/tips/fundraising-ideas-for-schools/ that may help you raise money for the getting the devices. Read them and see which would fit...

RGB Wand for Codebug - mix and make

jlangbridge — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 20:07:43 GMT

I'm getting ready to go to a school in France to show off the Codebug, a cute little design that makes development easy. There are some great examples on the element14 site, and I found an example for an RGB wand, something my 5 year old daughter loved (she put on her fairy disguise and ran around with the Codebug until the batteries drained). However, if I want to show development to kids, I need something with a little more impact. So, with the RGB wand in mind, I went and made something else.

Take a breadboard, and 3 variable resistors. For this example, I'm using 4.7K versions. Hook one end to "Power", and the other to "Ground". Do the same for all three. Now, connect the middle pin to pins 0, 1 and 2. These will be R, G and B respectively. Add a ColourStar, wire everything up with the crocodile clips, and it's time to code.

[View:/resized-image/__size/393x469/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/134/contentimage_5F00_81106.png:393:469]

The code is simple; we will set legs 0, 1 and 2 as analogue inputs. We'll also use the CoulorStar. We create a loop, one that will run forever. On each iteration, we will read in the values of pins 0, 1 and 2, and store them into variables; R, G and B respectively. Then, in another loop, we will turn each of the ColourStar LEDs to the value found on the analogue pins. Then repeat, forever. Here's what my setup looks like:

[View:/resized-image/__size/1600x899/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/134/contentimage_5F00_81107.jpg:1600:899]

Flash the program, and play about. With each of the variables resistors at a zero value, the LEDs are turned off. With each of the variable resistors connected to Vcc, all three colours are fully lit, and the LEDs appear white (watch it, these things are bright!). What happens when you turn on blue with a hint of red?

[View:/resized-image/__size/1600x899/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/134/contentimage_5F00_81108.jpg:1600:899]

With this, I hope my students are going to have fun, while learning about colours, and also about programming. I'll teach them programming, they will teach me about colours, since I'm totally colour-blind (almost black and white colour vision).

The entire project took about ten minutes, hunting down the final variable resistor included. The code itself was less than five minutes, it really is that easy to program these devices. I'll keep you updated on what my students think!

A huge thanks to element14 for the "Bit by the bug" campaign!

RE: I want a CodeBug

clem57 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 23:36:18 GMT

I will just have to seek more on the software side.

RE: I want a CodeBug

balearicdynamics — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 22:33:25 GMT

Clem, many things can be deducted anyway but without firmware seems just a joke. Don't you think ?

Enrico

RE: I want a CodeBug

clem57 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 03:27:54 GMT

CodeBug – Creative Commons is this what you want on hardware side?

RE: Codebug Halloween

mcb1 — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 07:45:54 GMT

Do you guys really play that music all day ??

Good work.

Codebug Halloween

cstanton — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 22:56:59 GMT

We needed some eyes for the Pumpkins we had in the Farnell offices:

https://twitter.com/Stanto/status/792340866123857920

Turned out pretty well:

https://twitter.com/FarnellNews/status/793093891004178434

Getting two of these to sync properly was a little trickier than I expected. I would have hoped that daisy chaining codebugs would be easy since they're affordable. Two worked, more would be trickier, though perhaps i2c would work out?

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

beacon_dave — Fri, 06 May 2016 18:16:27 GMT

The codebug had/has a market in that it looks small enough to incorporate into some craft type applications. I think I saw an example of it being used as an electronic dice in a board game and inserted into birthday cards with a scrolling message. However if you only have one of them then that means as a child you have to destroy your most recent artistic creation in order to create the next.

The micro:bit looks like it has a nice feature in that it can grow with you a bit as there are the four options for programming straight off. A lot will still depend upon the supporting resources for it though. Back in the 80's the BBC did something similar with the BBC Micro which was hailed a success as they launched the machine alongside a number of television programmes and text services. However at the time it was very expensive, using it with a TV screen was painful (and often had to be fitted in between family TV viewing schedules), and back in those days there were no VCR's so if you missed the TV broadcast you had to write off for a transcript of the show etc. Some code was available on text services but not many TVs had text at the time, and painful to try and copy by hand if you didn't have the optional expensive teletext add-on box.

At the start, schools only had a relatively small number of BBC micros. The best use I saw of the BBC Micro in my school was when one of the Physics teachers incorporated it in the curriculum by connecting it up to experiments and used it to produce real time graphs of acceleration alongside the manual ticker tape process. The woodworking/metalworking department had one as well and the CNC software but no CNC mills and lathes to go with it. There however was virtually no associated content to use at home even if your parents did buy one. As a result, a lot turned into games machines.

The downside to the likes of the codebug and micro:bit though is that they are reliant upon host machines for programming.

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

shabaz — Fri, 06 May 2016 17:20:24 GMT

Hi Dave, You're right, and I honestly did reserve judgement to see what kids would make of the codebug, but I'm frustrated because it probably did no good to those kids - I might as well have got them a book voucher or movie tickets and it would have been a more useful xmas gift.

The microbit on the other hand truly has an aim to be child-friendly without foisting a sensorless, wireless-connectivity-less LED trinket on them as the codebug effectively is (was) without any sensible connectivity options and as you say, very little support material.

The microbit looks spectacular to be honest. The codebug I suspect (just a personal opinion) was just an attempt to make money once the creators realized it wasn't what was deemed useful for children by the consortium (I'm guessing!) and they realized they had a window of opportunity. If we think something is educational and could benefit kids we just share it - as they should have done. Schematic was released 6 months after the kickstarter, firmware is still not available, and any software or hardware developers like us who would have supported them for free if it was for a good cause were not provided with any information.

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

beacon_dave — Fri, 06 May 2016 16:46:36 GMT

I think that you will find that they are aimed at very different audiences however.

I suspect that like the micro:bit the codebug was primarily aimed at younger children as opposed to the makerspace. Hence the simplified child-friendly design and graphical programming environment.

What I think lets a lot of these things down is the lack of supporting educational material to go along with them at the time the launch, so as to grab the attention and to keep it. It needs to be both fun and educational. However usually the product launch is well behind schedule and by the time enough supporting material has appeared another device has already entered the market claiming to be better and offer more.

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

fvan — Fri, 06 May 2016 14:33:40 GMT

I was interested to do the review initially, but after so many months (how long has it been) and still no word, I've moved on ...

Finally a small codebug public evolution

balearicdynamics — Thu, 05 May 2016 17:08:55 GMT

Just to share a link on their blog that it is the worth to read [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/134/2273.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

CodeBug – Blog – CodeBug's expansion port

Enrico

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

balearicdynamics — Fri, 06 May 2016 03:35:12 GMT

Same for me here...

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

dougw — Thu, 05 May 2016 23:59:22 GMT

I am all set up to do a couple of projects, but the micro:bit has not arrived yet....

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

clem57 — Thu, 05 May 2016 22:30:50 GMT

Oh yea. The BBC:micro has seen little usage here. Has anyone done a project worthy of note on it?

Clem

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

balearicdynamics — Thu, 05 May 2016 21:54:25 GMT

Me too agree with you Shavaz. It was almost ironic thi news, today. Btw also BBC:micro seems following the same wave

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

mcb1 — Thu, 05 May 2016 20:45:10 GMT

Agreed.

Earlier would have ensured the popularity.

RE: Learn about ARM CORTEX MCU DMA

Jan Cumps — Thu, 05 May 2016 19:32:06 GMT

I've used it for the Cortex R (Hercules) and it was not easy to get lots of info.

I learned it by looking at the demo applications that are available in HALCoGen help,

Then I read the DMA parts of the reference manual and tried to link all the things together.

(and appnotes like http://www.ti.com/lit/an/spna231/spna231.pdf )

And then I used forums to learn that DMA doesn't work for particular memory cache modes.

I'm still not very comfortable that I get everything right in my designs.

I find it (except for the most straightforward cases) a difficult subject. I always struggle to develop a performant data pipeline

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

michaelwylie — Thu, 05 May 2016 19:13:37 GMT

Agreed, don't even know where mine is anymore.

RE: Finally a small codebug public evolution

shabaz — Thu, 05 May 2016 19:04:36 GMT

I think they've missed the boat. It was so frustrating having the limited functionality earlier. I purchased and gave approx half a dozen of these away as Xmas presents to some kids/family, not heard back anything since..

Friends give friends Arduino's : )

They're not perfect by a long shot either, but infinitely more usable even by kids.

RE: Learn about ARM CORTEX MCU DMA

clem57 — Thu, 05 May 2016 17:23:59 GMT

If you are looking for how to program, look at ARM Information Center

Clem

Learn about ARM CORTEX MCU DMA

martinvalencia — Thu, 05 May 2016 10:54:31 GMT

Good day

I would like to know if there is any document containing information on the application of DMA in applications?