micro:bit Hide n’ Seek

We were contracted by Andrew McDonald of the First Peoples Innovation Centre (FPIC) to design a hide-and-seek game using micro:bits. These micro controllers are incredibly popular in the UK as an education tool, but has yet to make waves in North America. The coding for them is incredibly simple and easy to get into, while being affordable. With such a low barrier for entry, this game will be easy to set up and fun to play, and act as an inspiration for students to get into computer science. The goal of this project is to combine the educational aspect of a pop quiz with the fun aspect of running around and searching for things.
The game is simple. An instructor will perform the setup through our application; making the clues, writing the questions and their respective answers, and then loading those questions on to “beacon” micro:bits. They will then hide these beacons around the school/classroom. Next, they hand out “seeker” micro:bits to groups of students along with the list of questions and clues. Then the hunt begins! The students will use the clues to find a beacon. When the student gets within one meter of a beacon the seeker will light up. They can then press both buttons to request the question from the beacon. They scroll to what they think is the right answer, press both buttons to lock it in, and then the seeker tells them if they got the question correct. Then it’s off to find the next beacon.
One of the biggest challenges with this project was all of the radio functions. With several micro:bits all sending out various signals, we had a huge issue where they would sometimes pick up signals when they weren’t supposed to. For example, with our first prototype the beacons would constantly broadcast a signal giving away their location. Other beacons would interpret this as an incorrect answer to their question. We had to include all sorts of checks to make sure that only the right radio signals would be interpreted.