ultraBIT.md

**ITPDP** 10-02-2019 - Magnus Sten Andersen, 201609827; Sigurd Dalsgaard Pedersen, 201804767; Frederik Ølgaard Jensen, 201808548; Asger Jark Kappel, 201809488.

# ultra:bit
In this short article we present our preliminary experiences with the ultra:bit. With regards to the four factors motivation, tangibility, collaboration and creativity presented in *Creating cool stuff: Pupils´ experience of the BBC micro:bit* (Sentance, Waite, Hodges, MacLeod & Yeomans, 2017), we found the micro:bit to be especially motivating since it allows the user to work towards a visible and physical end goal. Another motivating factor are the many inspirational tutorials and projects that are associated with the micro:bit, which after completion inspired us to use the skills acquired towards our own projects. With regards to tangibility we did not find the micro:bit itself to be a very tangible experience. This is due to the fact that most of the programming process is done visually on the computer, however, with some of the other exercises that involve creating physical controllers we can see the potential for a more tangible ‘hands-on’ experience. The programming process was a very individual experience, but working with the ideas and concepts of what is being developed quickly becomes a collaborative discussion with room for many ideas. We found the micro:bit to be a very versatile product, which leads to creative ideas, especially once we completed some of the simple tutorials which inspired us to include the ideas presented in our own projects. Also the small form factor allows you to include the micro:bit in many different types of projects and makes it easy to incorporate it into to the physical outcome of your project.

We found the block interface very easy to use and the color coding with relation to the different type of code blocks made it easy to find the required type of code for your project. This makes it easy to understand what the code does and the principle of code consisting of blocks. Despite this, we do not think this teaches you anything about writing the code itself. As experienced coders we found it easier to switch to the JavaScript interface for some of the more complex tasks. This is similar to the idea presented in *The Gears of My Childhood* (Papert, 1980), which is that the gears can be used to illustrate many powerful and more advanced concepts, similarly, the color coded visual blocks allows you to understand more advanced concepts of coding.

As a final thought, we think the micro:bit corresponds well to Graham’s concept of ‘beautiful’, which is  ‘to make subtle tweaks to something that already exists, or to combine existing ideas in a slightly new way’ (Graham, 2003), which is exactly what we found the micro:bit inspired us to do. Take the existing concepts presented in the tutorials and apply them to our own future projects.

References:
* Sentance, S., Waite, J., Hodges, S., MacLeod, E., & Yeomans, L. (2017). Creating Cool Stuff: Pupils' Experience of the BBC micro: bit
* Papert, S. (1980). The Gears of My Childhood, Foreword in Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas
* Graham, P. (2003). Hackers and Painters.

### Comments Frederik ###
Nice reflection and use of the litterature. I would consider using more arguments/examples from your observation during the exercise while giving statements.
Nice that you have made a linking from your design blog to your different posts. 

### Kommentarer fra Stine ###
Det ville pynte med underoverskrifter og eksplicit introduktion og konklusion

Husk at bruge “…” + sidetal til citater

Jeres observationer er fine, men bliver meget refererende - det er ikke så tydeligt hvad I tager med fra denne øvelse videre i jeres projekt - husk at overveje fordele/ulemper ved dette eks. når i selv skal til at udvikle