BBC micro:bit challenge winner presents a smart alarm to protect birds

SHANGHAI, April 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global BBC micro:bit challenge do your :bit announced its winners from each region earlier this week. According to DFRobot, partner and organiser of the event, the winner of Asia and Pacific is a smart alarm protecting birds from colliding with glass windows.

Initiated by the Micro:bit Educational Foundation, do your :bit is a global BBC micro:bit challenge for young people aged 8 – 14 to combine creativity and technology in solutions for the Global Goals. Running the biggest online maker community in China, DFRobot cooperated with micro:bit to call for students and creators in China to participate in this challenge.

The award winning smart alarm, initially posted on DFRobot maker community, was commented by judges as 'really creative, incredibly well researched and elegantly presented'. The project is able to detect birds entering the area and automatically trigger an alarm to warn the birds from colliding into glass windows.

According to its hardware provider DFRobot, the project is built with a micro:Mate board, alongside a micro:bit to connect with an ultrasonic distance sensor that detects the distance between the glass and any object approaching it. When the object is within a certain range of the glass, a signal is sent via wires to LEDs on the glass. The LEDs flash and make the bird aware that the glass is there.

The micro:Mate board used in this project, is a tiny micro:bit I/O expansion board for learning electronics and building DIY projects. According to its provider DFRobot, the board expands 6 sets of 3-pin I/O interfaces, capable of connecting DFRobot Gravity series modules, servo motors, sensors and jumper wires.

As presented by the contestant, in this project, micro:bit and its abundant sensors and other input/output devices are used to build a smart alarm covering day and night, to protect the birds. According to the contestant, the idea to build this project was to provide a solution to the 15^th Sustainable Development Goal of life on land, which aims to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.