Teaching Kids Programming – How to Make Flashing Lights on Microbit?

Teaching Kids Programming: Videos on Data Structures and Algorithms

Flashing Lights/Screen on Microbit

The idea is to go through all 25 pixels and randomly turn them on or off (status) and the brightness can be set as well.

def on_forever():
    for row in range(5):
        for col in range(5):
            status = randint(0, 1)
            if status:
                led.plot(row, col)
            else:
                led.unplot(row, col)
            led.set_brightness(randint(0, 255))     
       
basic.forever(on_forever)

The Microbit provides the visualisation of the code in blocks:

microbit-flashing-lights-code-block

Another way is to convert number 0 to 25 to row and column.

def on_forever():
    for i in range(25):
        row = i // 5
        col = i % 5
        status = randint(0, 1)
        if status:
            led.plot(row, col)
        else:
            led.unplot(row, col)
        led.set_brightness(randint(0, 255))

basic.forever(on_forever)

The result is the following Microbit Simulator showing a flash light!

–EOF (The Ultimate Computing & Technology Blog) —