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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : MMBasic Board Of Education
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| PhenixRising Guru  Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
Just toying with the idea of a host board for the Pico that can actually do stuff that young people might be inspired by. I mean not just flashing LEDs but maybe a small motor driver, buzzer, click-clack relay, etc. Thinking about a kit that can be provided to schools. Only requiring a mouse, KB and monitor is huge and so is not having to compile, etc. MMBasic is not a library glue. Thoughts? |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4061 |
Might be what WhiteWizzard is doing? John |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2946 |
Been looking for opportunities here for many years now, specifically schools which are a VERY difficult sector to win over. After school clubs are doable, but I ended up writing monthly articles for EPE magazine in the end knowing I could at least get an audience there interested in the MicroMite. Am still interested in this but my day job takes away a lot of my time that would be needed. Advice I can give is to focus on lessons that achieve something ‘exciting’ within 25minites (something the MicroMite and PicoMite excel at!). |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
 Wouldn't surprise me...always happens when I think I've had a new idea |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
Yeah, not a commercial venture. I'm talking about donating. Now that we have a self contained system, maybe supply a half-dozen units with some things to play with, demo programs, etc. Our user manual is first-rate and perfect for students. "Learning how to program". What does that even mean? Printing Hello World on the screen? Screens are boring. Once students learn to influence external events, things become much more interesting. Personally, I have only ever learned when I needed to know, otherwise it's just useless words. Dunno. |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5138 |
Hi Phenix, Few years ago I had the same idea. My wife is a teacher, and at that time she had 10-12 year old kids. Now she teaches the 4-6 year old, and it is leap to far. The thing that would excite kids is movement, motors, actuators, real life influences. Not screens. Nothing beats their phone. Something that always works are these small 2 wheel robot cars. But... MMBasic does not have a low entry level in that. For entry level you would need logo (turtle) commands driving the motors (a library pre-programmed). That would ensure a 25 minute positive experience. When they are interested and get next level you could add sensors (line follower, and more exciting: line follower drag racing). I could excite my grand children 2 years back with simple soldering kit (they had to put it together themselves before they could use it). It is rewarding work. My grandson still has his robot on his desk, next to the 3 screens of his game PC. Volhout Edited 2025-08-05 06:32 by Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
 Yeah, I'm just getting my grand-kids into this stuff which is what gave me the idea. |
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| zeitfest Guru Joined: 31/07/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 588 |
Calculators here have to be approved before they are used in schools, at least for exams, and de facto have to conform to the education syllabus and content. Most students would get (one) approved calculator. So if device X isn't approved it is unlikely to get far. IIRC for many years the HSC (secondary school completion exam) had a "trick" question on integer division, where the answer was an integer and a response citing a fraction was marked incorrect. I don't know if it is still used. |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8000 |
TBH I now see the use of PicoMites for educational purposes more of a documentation issue than a hardware one. The Pico is very easy to obtain, but you still need access to a PC to install MMBasic or any other language. That makes them useless unless someone sets up a scheme where they can be sold either ready soldered to a PCB or with header pins, the language being preinstalled in both cases. That applies to all quantities and educational places are notably tight fisted, so I suspect it will be a case of the kids having to supply their own hardware. Also, you can't really do anything in MMBasic without a keyboard and display. Once again, we are back to needing additional hardware which may not be available in sufficient quantity. An educational book, using the PicoMite as its subject, is a far better proposition IMHO. It would be in addition to the manual and very similar to Geoff's Programming in MMBasic Tutorial but with more examples to work through and some actual projects to build. A book something like this would be much easier to "sell" to educational establishments, as basically it's only a book on programming, just heavily biased towards the PicoMite. Obviously there would need to be some additional components - possibly a breadboard, wire links and some loose components. These could be listed as a BOM and possibly available as a kit? The Pico would be the with-headers version so the complete system wouldn't require soldering. Most kids have some access to a PC. Even if their schools can't fill a room with monitors and keyboards they would probably be fine with allowing kids to install MMBasic using one of their machines. I can't see specific PCBs aimed at education working at all. A very cheap (or even free?) book and loading some firmware would be cheap enough for schools. The hardware is very cheap - most kids can get it with pocket money now but it's cheap enough for many schools to be able to make a few kits available on loan for those who are broke. The biggest cost, and the very big stumbling block, is in finding someone to provide educational assistance in the schools. Teachers are generally too busy with the sylabus stuff that they *have* to get through. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
Putting a price on something would be a PITA and so would involving a PC. I am thinking about donating boards that accept KB and VGA/HDMI monitors. Random visitors, here at the factory and who have nothing to do with me, get all excited when they see me driving actuators and motors from this tiny board. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8000 |
You *have* to have access to a PC to install MMBasic as well as to get it to do anything. That's unfortunate, but it's true. No commercial suppliers sell the Pico with MMBasic ready installed. You can get a Pico with pins. You can get breadboards and links. You can get actuators, drivers or whatever, but at the end of the day someone has to install MMBasic. :) Schools will generally not want anyone to mess with the keyboard and monitor plugs on their systems. That's all taken care of by their IT person or someone who has that task. You can't assume that there will be access to more than one PC, especially for something that isn't on the syllabus. IMHO schools and colleges won't teach BASIC anyway. If you want to get MMBasic into schools you need to do it via the back door, get the kids interested *first*, at their own expense. *Then* the schools might start to help by answering queries and might even get a setup or two to test in the classroom. Having an official book (even if it's a PDF) would help both the kids and the teachers. We are fighting the Arduino here as well as Microsoft. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
I'm talking about supplying complete, ready-to-run systems. It's not so much about the programming language but more about controlling things and logic structure. There's no-end of CS-degreed people out there who are of no-use to anyone. New, modern, industrial controllers, if they have an onboard language, it's usually derived from BASIC. Teachers are idiots. We need to start churning-out people with useful skills.  |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4061 |
I think it ought to involve movement - wheels maybe? Sensors to let a wheeled thing follow a line or navigate a maze? The RPi Pico boards are inadequate for this. Needs a fully-built specific board that does it all. Keyboard and display? Or that and a board to control the wheeled thing? Connecting to any school equipment - not desirable. I don't see Arduino as any issue as hardly any kid is going to fight its install/GUI/etc. And the biggest issue: how to get anything into schools? (Beware the curriculum not to mention overloaded teachers.) John |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
Not a fan of the wheelie things, too many of them but we can read temperatures, we have PWM. I have seen 12v coffee cup heating elements. Maybe teach things like PID? 3d printers are common; easy to make actuators to hit sensors, incorporate timers, loops, one-shots, etc. The sort of things that happen in the real world. |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4061 |
We've no medium or big infrastructure (for advertising, sales, even gifting, support, on-site visits, etc) so I suspect education just isn't doable, sadly. Maybe a way to get to people via ... dunno, web sites? Magazines such as they exist, are already somewhat working. The RPi people have the infrastructure but don't appear at all interested in even a high-level BASIC. Rename it MMAlgol? John |
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thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4314 |
Face it, we're lousy at outreach, consider the PicoCalc, that had/has a potentially larger audience (though still largely the 80's kids) and putting it very simply rather than trying to engage we had a collective sulk ... and I understand why, ClockworkPi behaved irresponsibly. Best wishes, Tom MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1437 |
At yet another call out. TWO "engineers" from the equipment manufacturer are here and are totally useless. I'm guessing late twenties, early thirties. The boss asked me to come over and I immediately discovered that the main motor contactor has burned out (contacts welded). This is basic stuff but dumb and dumber came up with ridiculous theories. Need to get our youth properly educated. I'm not gonna have any impact but maybe I can plant some seeds. Waiting for a courier to deliver a new contactor. Hourlies stood around. Fridiculous. |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5138 |
Phoenix, I know what you Try to actieve. I am 100% supporter, but I think the only way this can work is when you discussie with X school that you are giving a lecture, maybe 1 hour or 2, for free. And explain the limitations, and requirements. You Will bring your educational stuff, they supply monitor and keyboard. When the kids arepositive, there may be a succession in any form. The kids Will like powerfull things, big fans, explosions, smoke, anything that is very physical, nothing virtual. Speed control an electric bike wheel, measure kids weight, 2 kids, the whole classroom (I once had a demo with a climbing rope (borrowed from a local gym), and the challenge was how many could Climber in at the same time for maximum Total weight. Hilarious. The record was 16, around 900 kilo. Volhout Edited 2025-08-07 00:13 by Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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PeteCotton Guru Joined: 13/08/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 554 |
This is a tough one. To be very upfront - I have no experience in formal education - so all I can report on is what I've observed with my own kids. While I agree that sensors and other physical world stuff is interesting to kids, I wouldn't exclude the draw of just programming for the sake of programming. There is a certain satisfaction in being able to process numbers rapidly, access databases and generally make computers do "something" - even if it isn't particularly useful. There is a widely held belief (that I subscribe to), that the UK got a massive boost to it's long term economy and education by having cheap home computers (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad etc.) that inspired an entire generation of bedroom coders (who went on to become professional programmers). These kids weren't controlling robot arms, they were trying to make games. The 'mites give us that satisfaction today - writing simple games for no real end goal other than personal achievement. There is no reason to think that younger people would not also recognise that dopamine hit. I don't think it's just nostalgia, because I had an 80's party the other week, and there were about 15 kids present. The kids were hooked on pacman, missile command and arkanoid (all modern remakes of the arcade originals). Look at Lemmings and Tetris - games don't need to be multi-million dollar productions to be fun. Giving the kids the satisfaction of making their own games, wires their brain into thinking about conditions, loops, subroutines, variable scope etc. From there, stepping into any other language is child's play. That's just my 10 pence worth (or quarter in the U.S.).  |
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stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2601 |
my grandson is 9 and uses python and html. he's just coded flappy bird |
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