CH10-B - Press Picture

For this guide we won't need Maker Tape or any components. We're just going to put the micro:bit into the Bit Board.

We're only going to connect a USB cable and use the built-in A & B buttons on the front of the micro:bit

We'll use the LED Matrix found on the front of the micro:bit as well, to react to our button presses.

If you've never used a micro:bit before you'll want to check out this guide: Bit Board V2 Setup and Use

We're going to load the following code for our Press Picture program: https://makecode.microbit.org/_MwfVf3J0j...

Notice this code does not have a forever loop! Instead it uses event handlers to react to specific input, in this case, pressing a button.

Even though we're just turning on a single pixel at a time we'll still call this a Picture because we are using the show leds function and can draw an image on the entire matrix if we want to.

Once the code is loaded it should start running immediately.

You can power the micro:bit via the USB cable you used to load the code or you can use a battery pack plugged into the Bit Board.

Press the A Button, then press the B Button. You'll get one LED in the matrix to light up with each button press.

Try pressing the buttons rapidly, alternating between A and B. What happens?

The micro:bit may be slow to switch between the two LEDs since we're using the show leds function, and we've learned that it adds a slight delay when it runs.

Follow along with our recorded Live Stream!

You can watch the full video of us walking through this project, along with explaining and exploring the code: https://youtube.com/live/1WLUYItlSTY