Getting started with micro:bit workshop

In-person workshop at the Critical Media Lab (151 Charles St W, Kitchener)

Friday, March 8 at 1:30 PM

This workshop is designed for anyone who is interested in getting started with microcomputers but doesn’t know where to begin. For better or worse, microcomputers like the RaspberryPI and Arduino have become synonymous with maker culture and DYI projects, offering modestly powerful computing in a pocket-sized package. As more rhetorical work embraces field work, on the surface these relatively inexpensive tools seem to offer nearly unlimited potential for extendibility, but the barriers to entry are often steeper than imagined, with coding, finding support, and troubleshooting hardware faults all potential pitfalls. Using the BBC micro:bit as a platform, this workshop will guide attendees in the basics of its onboard sensors including sound, light, and temperature, to create an environmental logger. As attendees build a device that interacts with their surroundings they’ll be encouraged to think through how things and humans “co-shape each other” (Wakkary). No previous experience with microcomputers or coding is required.

The workshop will be facilitated by PhD candidate in the Department of English, Chris Rogers.

Please RSVP using the QR code on the poster. Contact medialab@uwaterloo.ca with any additional questions.