18. Maths

I hope to involve my school's maths teachers in some of the micro:bit projects and I will document progress here. The link between computing and maths is something I have long been eager to develop in my school.

Here are some tasks that we hope to set the children in their maths lessons during the course of next year:

Simple calculator to add two numbers. This script can easily be adapted for subtraction, division and multiplication.

Enter a number - a simple program that can be used to enter a number to a micro:bit.

Turn of century age counter - another program based on the 'enter a number' program. In this case to calculate the user's age at the turn of the century.

Cricket umpire's over counter - this is an adaptation of the 'enter a number' program. It is for an umpire to keep a record of the number of balls bowled in an over.

Reaction game and reaction game with score - the score version is an extension of the reaction game. This is a two player game. The first person to press their button on a given signal is the winner.

Maths investigations provide an obvious context for the inclusion of computing.

Two point calibration

Max box investigation

A classic example of a Year 6 or Year 7 investigation is to work out the maximum box volume that can be made from a square of paper of fixed size. This can be done by trial and improvement method.

The micro:bit is programmed to carry out the calculations. The program only works with integers (whole numbers). The units will be whatever units the paper has been measured in.

Algorithm:

When shaken start counting.

When button A is pressed record the paper size

display size

Restart the count.

When button B is pressed record the height

display height

area = paper size - (height x 2) x paper size - (height x 2)

volume = box area x height

display volume

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