BETT 2017

Bett is a large conference and exhibition focused on technology and education. It has a very international attendance. I was there this year for the second time and spoke to people from various European nations as well as from the USA, Singapore and Hong Kong.

micro:bit featured all over the place as well as of course in the micro:bit Education Foundation's area.

Microsoft were everywhere as well! Rightly so. I love what Microsoft have done for developers with PXT, in particular.

Perhaps best of all, I got to see the Bloodhound project for schools going through its paces. They had an awesome set up, allowing two rocket cars to be raced inside a perspex safety "tunnel" with accelerometer data streamed from their embedded micro:bits over Bluetooth to tablets running my Bitty Data Logger application. Wonderful!

I gave a presentation, both on Wednesday and Thursday, about the opportunity afforded by the emerging Internet of Things and how micro:bit and Bluetooth are providing a great vehicle for educators to prepare youngsters for the Age of IoT when they leave the education system. You can see highlights of the presentation in this short video:


Thursday's presentation was very well attended, with standing room only, which is always very gratifying. And I got a "good job!" from none other than a teacher. That definitely made my day :-)