CCC - Treasure Hunt
Resources for the 'Treasure Hunt' Creative Computing Club.
During this workshop, you will program a BBC micro:bit to detect other micro:bits and show you how close or far away you are from it.
This page recaps what we discussed as a group.
Creating your first program
Click here for the starter program containing the functions you will need later in the workshop. Click Edit Code to open your own version of the program!
Drag and drop code blocks (click into the Basic menu), to recreate this code:
You will see it running on the emulator on the left of your screen.
- What happens if you put the show block inside forever instead of on start?
- What other show blocks can you find in the Basic menu?
Follow the instructions to pair your micro:bit, then click Download to send your code to your physical micro:bit.
Communicating with your treasure
Step 1: make sure your micro:bit only listens for one of the treasure boxes
- In the Radio menu
- Choose: radio set group(1)
- Put this block into your on start event
- Change the number to match your laptop's number.
Step 2: listen out for string (text) messages
- In the Radio menu
- Choose: on radio received receivedString
Step 3: do some background maths to work out the signal strength
- In the Advanced menu
- In the Functions menu
- Choose: call check-signal
- Put this block into your on radio received event
Step 4: prepare a bar graph
- In the Led menu
- Choose: plot bar graph
- Put this block into your on radio received event
- Change the up to number to 9
Step 5: plot a graph of the signal strength
- In the Variables menu
- Choose: signal-strength
- Put this block into your plot bar graph block, so that it replaces the first number
Your final code should look like this:
Test our your code - does the graph change as you get nearer to the treasure boxes?
Try to find our own treasure box - when you think you have found it, check the micro:bit inside and make sure that it shows the number of your computer.
Do you want to know what message the micro:bit is sending to you?
Add a couple more blocks of code:
- In the Advanced menu
- In the Serial menu
- Choose: write line " "
- Put this block into your on radio received event
- From the top of you on radio received event, click and drag receivedString
- Put this block into your write line " " block, so that it replaces the " "
After sending the new code to your micro:bit, click Show data Device under the Emulator.
What now?
You can choose what to do next. You could...
- keep coding your original micro:bit, for example to make it beep when you get close to the treasure.
- change the code on the new micro:bit, for example to change the message it sends to you.
Work on only one thing at once - having two micro:bits can get confusing!