Yesterday, while searching for a robotics kit for my daughter who is interested in robotic coding, I came across an interesting micro:bit kit on Kickstarter and started researching micro:bit.
It has an easier interface.
It was developed only for education.
Block Coding IDE seems useful.
On the downside; its community is weak.
What do you Arduino users think about micro:bit?
Here's the microbit kit I saw: [kickstarter page](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robotistan/picobricks-for-micro-bit-your-programmable-stem-playground?ref=3q7tof)
On the IDE: it's https://scratch.mit.edu/ with mods. It's made for teachers to force it on their students because it's "so easy". It' not. The moment you are able to type text on the keyboard is the moment you have outgrown that "IDE". Don't know what to say on the hardware - I do not see a use case.
The micro:bit is a learning tool that has a few in built sensors and is a fairly decent intro to microprocessors and micropython for a pre-teen. Unfortunately it does not take long to reach it's boundaries and in my opinion and for similar cost it's better to go with one of the arduino boards that support micropython if micropython is what you want. For example the Nano ESP32 is a much more capable board that is able to do some really amazing things with a similar learning curve to the micro:bit.
The only downside might be the visual coding. Generally in industry not used, except in some niche areas like test and measurement, industrial control, but with quite different "languages". So I guess for a general introduction to STEM it might be useful, but if any future in coding is expected then at some point the student needs to learn text based languages.
I think block coding is better for a beginner. With block coding, you can first learn algorithms and then switch to text based coding.
I know the Arduino Grove Beginner kit. I think it is both inadequate and boring, especially for beginners. my daughter's too young. More fun kits would be better.
I think I will buy the microbit kit, I hope I won't regret it.
I checked the site of the team that made the microbit kit. They have nice and fun projects: https://picobricks.com/pages/robotic-stem-projects
Oh really, you "came across" it??? That is interesting since I see your Instructables bio says you work for picobricks:
Very slimy marketing tactics!!! I hope that everyone will be warned to avoid doing any business with the unscrupulous company Robotistan that created this kickstarter.
So the way I interpret that is "we liked their idea so much we copied their design".
Funny, I was going to say "beware of scams on Kickstarter" but I thought that would be too negative. My advice now would be "don't touch this with a barge pole". I assume that any testimonials for their products are probably fake.
