SENSORS AND DATA

Light Sensor: Automatic Night Light

In this activity, you'll create a program that turns your micro:bit into an automatic night light.
The LEDs will brighten as the surrounding environment gets darker.

Getting Started

Here's the basic structure for your program:

from microbit import *

while True:

    # Get the current light level

    light_level = display.read_light_level()

    # Your code here:

    # 1. Print the light level to the console

    # 2. Map and clamp the light level to LED brightness

    # 3. Set all pixels to the calculated brightness

    # Add a delay to prevent too rapid updates

    sleep(100)

Understanding Light Levels

First, let's see what kind of values we get from the light sensor:

from microbit import *

while True:

    light_level = display.read_light_level()

    print(light_level)

    sleep(100)

Run this code and observe the values in the console. Try covering the micro:bit or shining a light on it. What's the range of values you see?

Mapping and Clamping

• Now that you know the range of light levels, you need to map these to LED brightness levels (0-9).

• Refer to the mapping formula from the previous lesson if necessary, however you should find this one a bit easier.

• You'll need to adjust this formula to reverse the relationship (darker environment = brighter LEDs).

• After mapping, make sure to clamp the values between 0 and 9.