Forget the sonic screwdriver – Micro Bit will defeat Daleks in interactive lessons

Sonic screwdriver? Pah! In the BBC’s latest brainwave to get school kids excited about programming, it’s the Beeb’s own Micro Bit computer board which is the gadget to save the day against the Daleks’ latest dastardly plot.

Tying Doctor Who in with computer studies is a pretty innovative way of making programming more accessible and interesting, in order to stoke enthusiasm with the next generation of coders.

And that’s exactly what the BBC’s Live Lessons aim to do, streaming live broadcasts to classrooms across the UK.

In this interactive Doctor Who episode-meets-lesson, the Daleks have triggered a supernova causing a shockwave that is threatening to destroy Earth – and only the ‘combined power of a million Micro Bits’ can save the day.

This will be a 50-minute adventure that kicks off at 11:00 tomorrow morning (UK time), with students using their Micro Bits to help the Doctor defeat the alien menace we’re all too familiar with now.

Computational thinking

Specifically, the lesson is designed around developing the ‘computational thinking skills’ of 11 to 13-year-olds, and as well as the Doctor himself, it will also feature various guest experts from the spheres of computer games and web search.

This will be the first in a number of interactive Doctor Who adventures in the Live Lessons series, with a second mission already scheduled for April 24. Assuming tomorrow’s defence against the Daleks goes well, of course, and the entire world isn’t shattered into a billion fragments…

Here at TechRadar, we’ve also got a pile of content for Micro Bit enthusiasts, including a primer on how to get started with the computer board, and a guide on coding your own game with the Raspberry Pi-like miniature marvel.

• Here are 10 things you need to know about the BBC Micro Bit

March 27, 2017 at 07:44PM
Darren Allan