Seeed Studio’s XIAO collection of improvement boards contains a tiny (21 x 17.8mm) footprint, together with a variety of capabilities and processing models, making them excellent for small embedded initiatives. Whereas they are often programmed within the familiar-to-many Arduino IDE, if you happen to’re solely new to the world of microcontrollers and bodily computing, this might characterize a steep studying curve.
Instead, Seeed just lately introduced full assist for the MicroBlocks visible programming language! MicroBlocks describes itself as “a free, Scratch-like blocks programming language for studying bodily computing with instructional microcontroller boards.” What’s actually neat about MicroBlocks is that, whereas it’s not the one block-based microcontroller language, it helps each dwell programming and autonomous operation. So code adjustments run in your board instantly, and if you unplug it, the system nonetheless runs. You may even plug it into one other pc to permit another person to discover your code!
MicroBlocks runs on boards just like the BBC micro:bit and Adafruit Circuit Playground Specific, and now it’s accessible on your entire XIAO household. So in case you have certainly one of these thumb-sized boards, all you’ll want to do to get began is: join it to your pc, open MicroBlocks in a Chrome or Edge browser, set up MicroBlocks firmware, and get coding. Or you’ll be able to plug in another person’s programmed board to see how their code works!
Extra data is on the market on the MicroBlocks Wiki and Seeed Studio’s web page.
