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RoadTest Support: ACCESS:bit for micro:bit Operational Success

colporteur

This is the fifth instalment in a series of blog posts to support a RoadTest Review of the ACCESS:bit for micro:bit. The review is being conducted by a student from a high school computer club. Details on how the RoadTest is being conducted can be found here RoadTest Support: ACCESS:bit for micro:bit The Application

 

Our RoadTest review team is happy to report, the ACCESS:bit is working. The student was experiencing some problems detailed in the last blog posting RoadTest Support: ACCESS:bit for micro:bit Troubleshooting . The issues have been resolved and the unit now works as described in the documentation (the correct document that is).

 

I can’t stress how important it was to have the documentation that reflected the equipment used. Assuming the documents provided from the RoadTest site were accurate and failing to confirm the assumption created a path that didn't lead to success.

 

There doesn’t appear to have been any issues with the equipment itself. A lack of experience, incorrect documentation and not following instructions verbatim were factors in the student not getting the device working initially.

 

On reflection, the Coaches decision to allow the student to work independently and continue to keep a hands-off approach may have placed an undue burden on the student to succeed. The student worked out the issues and in the end got the device working.

 

Using the correct documentation and following the instructions as provided in the document enabled the student to get the unit working. The student struggled unnecessarily. This struggle would have been minimized if the experience had of stepped in. Hindsight is always 20/20.

 

Doing the same thing over and over again and getting the wrong results, is a pattern the most experience person will fall victim to. “It has to work” are words I have uttered many times. Trying the same thing again to get the same result is not uncommon.

 

The instructions, “I want you to use the code as written, do not change a thing”, was a lesson that had to be learned. The statement, "But it should work", fell on deaf ears. Do it as the document says and let me know if it works. Guess what. it did.

 

This concludes the blog post in support of the RoadTest. The student and Coach have a final meeting pending to discuss the preparation of the RoadTest Review document.

  • in reply to kmikemoo

    I'm impressed with the student performance in isolation. I believe if we were working on the project face to face, I would have been able to maybe catch some issues. I recall after blog four troubleshooting post, discussing with the student the pinout for a servo. I had all indications he understood the servo pinout, wiring colour code and board labelling.

     

    One of the problems that contributed to the device not working, that he did discover much later, was that the servo was plugged in backwards. The connector is not keyed to the board in order to avoid this happening. I'm just curious about what became of the pinout discussion. I was confident after that knowledge share the servo would be connected corrected.

     

    The work was done through email exchange. Long dialog is not the students style. Q&A emails flowed back and forth to work solutions. I'm tying to decide for the RoadTest Review write-up what are the lessons learned from the exercise we can share that would help someone thinking of purchasing the device.

  •     Great to hear that it's all working as it should.  That makes the struggles "learning".  When it doesn't work... not so much.  I have learned so much more from what has gone wrong than from what has gone right.

    The struggles that are the most frustrating are the self-inflicted ones.  All of us have muttered... "Note to self:  Don't do THAT again."  Like when we misinterpret the instructions because we thought they meant something else.

    As I remind my technicians regularly, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.  And... it's all simple - once you figure it out.  Before then, it's as complicated as <insert angry expletive here>.

    It's what makes the victory of a functioning project that much sweeter.