A night with micro:bit and Science Oxford

Hello Pythonistas,

We are incredibly fortunate to have two talks covering the use of the fantastic micro:bit.

Talk one - MicroPython on the BBC micro:bit

Carlos Pereira Atencio first encountered the BBC micro:bit at a Python meetup organised by Nicholas Tollervey and Tony Ibbs, where he completely fell in love with the device and their mission. Thanks to the friendliness and openness of the Python community he was able to quickly get involved and start contributing to some of the micro:bit open source projects. With time he was able to join the Micro:bit Educational Foundation as a software engineer, where he can now work on micro:bit full time and continue to contribute back to this awesome community.

The talk will cover MicroPython on the micro:bit, what you can do, where we are and where we are going (micro:bit MicroPython v1.0).

Talk two - Using micro:bits/micropython with school, family & community groups

Sarah Townson, Technology Projects Officer and Noelle Aly Clubs Delivery Officer at Science Oxford will be giving a talk on the workshops they run teaching micropython via micro:bits to people aged 8-80! They'll discuss the fun and challenges of working with such a wide variety of audiences and focus on a couple of key projects they're currently working on, such as Noelle’s Accessible Instruments project with Ark-T, and Sarah’s upcoming Robot Camp.

This should be a great opportunity to learn from both the micro:bit team, as well as the great work done by Science Oxford. We would encourage anyone interested in the micro:bit or MicroPython to come along and learn more.

We pass our thanks to Science Oxford and Torchbox for making these meetups possible.

We hope to see you all there