Getting started with PicoBricks for micro:bit

PicoBricks, is a creative and easy-to-use electronic development board designed to create micro:bit projects. When used with the PicoBricks board consisting of 12 detachable bricks, you have a comprehensive environment for project development by using micro:bit sensors. Additionally, you can connect different sensors to the pin points on the mainboard brick by using crocodile cables to diversify your projects.

	Main Board	The micro:bit brick is a component that facilitates communication between the micro:bit and PicoBricks. You can establish connections with all bricks without the need for cables by connecting the micro:bit to the designated connector on the brick. After disconnecting from PicoBricks, you can utilize the connection ports on the module. Thanks to these ports, you can communicate with the disconnected bricks via micro:bit by using a single cable. This enables you to easily create mobile projects such as Robot Tank, Robot Arm, Smart Greenhouse, etc.
	Piano and Gaming	The piano and gaming brick is a brick with 14 touch sensors. You can create touch-sensitive projects by touching the designated areas on the board.
	OLED Screen Brick	Images, text, GIFs, etc., can be displayed on the 128 x 64 OLED screen. Thanks to the OLED Screen brick, we can create image outputs.
	RGB LED Brick	It is a brick that allows for obtaining secondary colors by changing red, blue, and green colors between 0 and 255. The PicoBricks development board has 3 addressable LEDs.
	Temperature & Humidity Brick	It is a brick that allows us to detect the temperature and humidity values of the environment.
	PIR Brick	It is a PIR brick that returns the motion detected from the environment as a digital value (0 or 1).
	Relay Brick	The relay is an electronic switch. If it allows the current to pass through it, the value of the relay will be "1", otherwise it will be "0". We can control the current going to different electronic devices by using the PicoBricks relay brick.
	Motor Driver Brick	The motor driver brick is used to control the motors by microcontroller. These modules provide the power needed to control the motor and can often control speed and direction. Thanks to the motor driver brick, we can operate 4 servo motors and 2 DC motors at the same time.
	Wireless Brick	The wireless brick hosts two different sensors. The first of these sensors is an ESP01 Wi-Fi sensor and the other one is an IR receiver. You can do IoT projects by using these sensors and bluetooth sensor on micro:bit
	Action Brick	Thanks to the action brick, we can detect the direction of hand/arm movements, the color of an object that brought close to the brick, the light value of the environment in the projects.
	LDR Brick	It is the sensor that allows us to detect the amount of light in the environment. It returns an analog value based on the amount of light in the environment.
	Button and Potentiometer Brick	With the button and potentiometer brick, we can provide physical input to the circuit. A potentiometer is an adjustable resistor. By turning the potentiometer on PicoBricks, we can change the resistance value that entering the circuit. By pressing the button on the brick, we can provide a digital input to the circuit.

About Picobricks

PicoBricks is a development board that eliminates the difficulties experienced in physical programming. You can invest the time saved from these challenges to create more creative projects. 

Thanks to its modular structure, PicoBricks eliminates challenges such as soldering, cable clutter, incorrect pin connections, etc., experienced in physical programming. Additionally, its microcontroller board Micro:Bit, being easily programmable and supporting various coding platforms, further eradicates programming difficulties during the coding phase.

PicoBricks supports both block-based and text-based programming tools. With MakeCode Blocks and MicroBlocks IDE, we can code our projects quickly by using block-based programming. Block-based programming tools eliminate many difficulties such as punctuation marks and functions while writing code. This makes it an effective method for developing algorithmic skills necessary for programming education, especially for young age groups or beginners. With PicoBricks, while developing projects, we can easily create complex projects by simply dragging a few code blocks onto our project page by using MakeCode and MicroBlocks programs. Additionally, PicoBricks supports the C programming language in Arduino IDE and the MicroPython programming language in Thonny IDE. Arduino IDE and Thonny IDE are the most commonly used programming tools for physical programming education among text-based programming tools. Thonny IDE eliminates punctuation (Syntax) errors frequently encountered in text-based programming languages due to its support for the MicroPython language.

How to Code PicoBricks for micro:bit?

You can use PicoBricks with block-based and text-based coding.

Block coding turns programming into a drag-and-drop process by converting text-based code into visual blocks. Each block contains real code and when they’re combined together, they create animations and games. No matter which block-based programming language you’re using, they all have a variety of different blocks that perform different key coding functions.

Text-based coding is what professionals use and is done by typing keyboard characters following a certain syntax (rules and regulations) of a particular programming language.

How to Use MakeCode Micro:Bit

Let’s open “https://makecode.microbit.org/#” in the browser. 

Let's make our first project with PicoBricks for micro:bit: The Blink Project!

Project Code