Thousands of tiny computers will be given away in the UK - here’s how to get yours for cheap
Hundreds of schools in the United Kingdom to benefit from tech giveaway in multi-million dollar drive.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Nearly 700,000 BBC micro:bit computers, worth millions of dollars, will be given away for free to every primary school across the United Kingdom in a bid to support the country’s ambitions to become a global tech superpower.
A new partnership calledBBC micro:bit - the next gencomprising the BBC Education, Micro:bit Educational Foundation and the company in charge of the .UKdomain nameregistry, Nominet. This builds on the original scheme which saw one million micro:bit given away to every year 7 student in the UK from October 2015 onwards.
From September 2023 to March 2024, teachers can register their schools on theBBC micro:bit websiteto get classroom sets of 30 BBC micro:bit computers and accompanying teaching resources. From next year, children from the age of eight will be able to learn coding on this platform in a bid to prepare the next generation better for challenges ahead (helloAI).
Market research done in 2022 found that “teachers feel overwhelmingly unprepared and lack confidence when teaching digital skills” with the majority of UK primary teachers responsible for teaching computing having no proper background on the subject.
According to the brains behind thisSTEM(Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics) campaign, its goals are to “increase teacher knowledge and confidence and empower educators with a toolkit of quality, proven devices, lesson plans and inspiration ideas.”
What is a Micro:bit anyway?
The micro:bit (currently in v2) is about half the size of a business card and is powered by anARMCortex-M4. While it may be considered as a Raspberry Pi rival, they focus on different audiences. It has accelerometer, temperature and magnetometer sensors plus a microphone, a buzzer, three push buttons, a 25-LED display, Bluetooth and USB connectivity.
You don’t have to be a student or a teacher to get your mitts on one of them though.Amazonalready sells a BBC micro:bit kit for just under $35 which comes with the SBC, a USB cable and a battery holder with two AAA batteries; the UK version comes in at£22 from the same supplier. Bigger packs are available as well as more complete ones.
Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
We reviewed theoriginal micro:bitback in 2016 and found it to be a great way to get into coding. Just bear in mind though that it looks nothing like theoriginal BBC Microbut more like single board computers like the popularRaspberry Pi. If you want to learn more about the BBC micro:bit, here are some valuable resources that we produced when it was launched.
Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled inwebsite buildersandweb hostingwhen DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.
LG Electronics sets ambitious B2B revenue goal to offset declining consumer demand
New fanless cooling technology enhances energy efficiency for AI workloads by achieving a 90% reduction in cooling power consumption
After Arcane season 1 ended on a stunning cliff hanger, its creators say it was ‘always the plan’ for those characters to die in the season 2 premiere
