When the makerspace was launched, PyLadies Pune group was among the first to receive invitations to conduct their meetups as I have been a member from August 2016.
I am glad they took the offer and we had the most fun session, thanks to the microbits – tiny computing devices aimed at children, packed with a lot of features.
Anwesha initiated discussion for booth duties and PyLadies Pune t-shirts for PyCon Pune. Ideas were exchanged, Anjali volunteered to come up with a quilling design, Samruddhi and Shivangi volunteered for making a cutout, me and Anwesha are working on badges. Hopefully, coming weekend we will get together to put everything together.
Kushal and Py came in and our wait for the micro:bits was over. Or so we thought!
PyLadies, friends & PyBabies
After briefing us about the micro:bits, Kushal realized he had forgotten them home. Thanks to Sayan who cycled up to Kushal’s house and got them for us. While I am saying my thank yous, I cannot miss thanking Kushal for getting this wonderful device to the makerspace for all of us to try. A big thank you to ntoll who sent the micro:bits to Kushal. I speak on behalf of everyone at the space, the entire hands-on session was great fun.
We started with downloading the mu editor. Soon enough we got into micropython and life seemed easy again!
All we had to do was write a script in the editor window and click the “Flash” button to transfer it to the micro:bit. There was a time when the room was full of weird noises from the music module in the tutorials. That phase also passed and we reached the radio module. This tiny device can easily cover a large area, across walls. To demo this Sid & I went out with my micro:bit that was able to receive signals (albeit a little lossy) at least 4000sqft away. If this doesn’t blow you away, the device has an accelerometer and a compass – one can also detect movement, gestures and directions. Few girls went on to do their own experiments even after session time which is always heartening to see 🙂
PyCon Pune devsprints will have these devices and more.
I got to keep a micro:bit at the makerspace for any curious soul who wants to learn programming quickly. Yay!
We are hoping for more such meetups at the space.