1. micro:bit for primary schools – mb4ps.co.uk
Sessions 4 and 5
Animations and brightness
Written by Neil Rickus. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

2. Objectives Alter the brightness of the LEDs
Use a variable to alter the brightness
Trigger events with the buttons

3. Altering LED brightness
Last time we made an animation
We’re now going to make a heart fade in
What blocks do you think we could use?

4. Altering LED brightness
These instructions will make a heart flash

5. Challenges Make your heart fade in more gradually
Get the LEDs to dim, then go brighter

6. Using variables We can use a variable to store the brightness
Create a new variable called “myBrightness”
We’ll then set this variable to zero

7. Using variables
Through using the variables, we can reduce the number of instructions we need

8. Challenges Alter the speed of the fade by:
Changing the length of the pause
Altering the brightness increase

9. Programming events
We can make the heart only appear when you shake the device

10. Challenges
Make the heart go brighter if you press button A – try this block
Make the heart go darker if you press button B
Make the heart vanish if you press A and B at the same time
Make the heart go brighter if you tilt the micro:bit screen upwards
Make the heart go darker if you tilt the micro:bit screen downwards