Lesson 1.

20 – Using the Micro:Bit Display

Education Level: Second Level (Age 7-11)

Lesson Duration: 45 minutes

Prerequisite Knowledge: Lessons 1.1-1.14 & 1.19

Device Compatibility: Laptop or PC

Lesson Overview
Students will be exploring the LED display on the Micro:Bit as a way to express some more feelings through Marty the Robot.
Using sprites on Scratch as a controller, the Micro:Bit can be attached to Marty to represent his mouth which can be easily
changed.

Learning Objectives Key Vocabulary

• Consider how we express our feelings on a daily • Micro:Bit
basis and what we use to do this • Expressing feelings
• Explore what different feelings we can represent • Sprites
using the Micro:Bit and Marty
• If Statements
• Build a small program to change the LEDs on the
• Events
Micro:Bit to represent Marty’s mouth
• Computational Thinking

Resources & Equipment Additional Reading

• Marty the Robot • Educator’s Guide
• Marty Workbook (Lesson 2) • Introduction to Programming with Marty using
• Laptops/Computers with Scratch Link installed Scratch
• Access to the Scratch 3 editor • BBC Micro:Bit Quick Start Guide for Teachers
(https://microbit.org/guide/quick/)
• BBC Micro:Bit
• Blu Tack

Learning Plan & Activities

1. Ask students to think in groups what emotions they feel and how people express them?
a. Get students to think about how we show how we are feeling and what we use particularly facial features like
eyebrows, eyes and mouth
2. In the same groups, students should move to their devices with Scratch and create a small program
a. Each sprite represents a different feeling and when you click on it, Marty should show this feeling using his eyes
and the Micro:Bit LED grid as the mouth
3. Students should try to see how many feelings they can think up and represent with programming before showing it
off to other student groups and seeing if they can guess what feeling Marty is showing

Additional Challenges
• Students could challenge each other to come up with as many different feelings they can represent with Marty and
the Micro:Bit
• Are there any other attributes they can add to make their representations more realistic? Like movement or sound?
 • Can students use animation of the LED lights to improve their representation of the feeling (looping through some
different LED displays with each one slightly different to the last to give off the sense of movement)

Curriculum Benchmarks

Curriculum for Excellence – Technologies Benchmark Guide

● = Fully Addresses Benchmark ○ = Partially Addresses Benchmark
Curriculum Organiser Benchmark Covered Lesson 1.20
TCH 0-01a ●
Digital Literacy
TCH 0-02a ●
Technological Developments in
Society & Business
TCH 0-05a ●

Craft, Design, Engineering and TCH 0-09a ●

Graphics TCH 0-11a ●
TCH 0-13a ●
TCH 1-13a ●
TCH 2-13a ○
TCH 3-13a ●
TCH 3-13b ●
TCH 4-13a ●
TCH 0-14a ●
TCH 0-14b ●
Computing Science TCH 1-14a ●
TCH 1-14b ●
TCH 2-14a ●
TCH 3-14a ●
TCH 0-15a ●
TCH 1-15a ●
TCH 2-15a ●
TCH 3-15a ○
TCH 4-15a ○

National Curriculum – Computing, Design & Technology

● = Fully Addresses Benchmark ○ = Partially Addresses Benchmark
Curriculum Organiser Benchmark Covered Lesson 1.20
1-a ●
1-b ●
1-c ●
1-e ●
Computing
2-a ●
2-b ●
2-c ●
2-f ○
 3-a ●
3-b ○
3-d ○
4-a ○
4-b ○
1.1-b ●
Design & Technology 1.2-a ○
2.3-b ●

Australian F-10 Curriculum – Digital Technologies, Design & Technologies

● = Fully Addresses Benchmark ○ = Partially Addresses Benchmark
Curriculum Organiser Benchmark Covered Lesson 1.20
ACTDIK001 ●
ACTDIK002 ●
ACTDIP003 ○
ACTDIP004 ●
ACTDIK008 ○
ACTDIP009 ○
ACTDIP010 ●
ACTDIP011 ●
ACTDIP012 ●
ACTDIP013 ●
Digital Technologies ACTDIP017 ●
ACTDIP018 ○
ACTDIP019 ●
ACTDIP020 ●
ACTDIP021 ○
ACTDIP027 ○
ACTDIP028 ○
ACTDIP029 ●
ACTDIP030 ●
ACTDIP031 ○
ACTDIP040 ○
ACTDEP005 ○
ACTDEP006 ●
ACTDEP008 ○
Design & Technologies
ACTDEP009 ●
ACTDEP015 ○
ACTDEP018 ●