I am experiencing an issue with the MQTT library on an ESP32 board. The connection to the broker (Adafruit IO) and the topic subscription (MQTT sub) both complete successfully. This is confirmed by debug messages and the ability to reliably publish data (MQTT pub). However, the when MQTT event block never triggers when a message is published to the subscribed topic. I have tested this with a minimal script that only displays the payload, but it still does not work. This suggests a bug in how incoming messages are handled, as they are not triggering the event block.

Also, for a more direct support of MicroBlocks related issues with these boards, you can check out our Discord Forum at: https://discord.com/channels/1000653853491998760/1321772362479173673

To test your IR sensor with the remote you get with your Zero to Hero kit, you can use this script.

The broadcast block sends out the message content specified into the program context. All when received message blocks with the same message content will receive the message and act on it.

I added when received for the first 4 buttons only. But I guess you get the message how it works.

Have fun.

Have fun.

In a recent seminar on MicroBlocks, we had the opportunity to use the new versions of the PB Kit. This version includes an IR sensor, replacing the outdated ESP01 module; as well as a new OLED display.

Some users have commented that the new display, when used with the OLED Library, intermittently goes dark and makes the display content not visible, when repetitive display writes were used.

We have traced the problem back to the contrast level differences between the old and new display models. To help you out with the identification, here are the images of both display types:

OLD Version:

New Version:

If you are experiencing this problem, here is a quick fix:

Use the Contrast adjustment block of the OLED library and set it to the highest value:4.

An upcoming version of the Library will adjust the default contrast level from 2 to 4 to address the problem.

Happy coding.

But with MicroBlocks, you can also take part in the exploration without worrying about these barriers. We have developed a Library for the popular HuskyLens unit by DFRobot. Of course, you have to first buy the camera, but after that you will be enjoying the wonderful world of AI Vision and start creating your own projects.

First check out the writeup on our WIKI. The Library is developed 100% with MicroBlocks using the blocks to code each and every functionality; the same as the OLED Display Library. It is a testament to the power of the language and complicated projects you can develop with it.

You will find examples for every block in the library. Just connect your camera to a microcontroller with I2C support available to you (eg: Pico2040, micro:bit v2, etc.) and then drag and drop the various blocks to test the features. Once you get familiar with the working concepts, you are on your way to creating your own projects.

DFRobot Info page can be reached here.

As you know, the OLED Graphics Library is the one you have been using for displaying anything on the OLED display. However, with all it's great features like buffered compositions, animations, wrap control, sprites, etc, it exacts a heavy memory toll on your projects at 26K.

To lighten up the memory footprint at the expense of a some features, we are now supporting display capability using the TFT Library. With only a 3K size, it is the perfect tool for projects that do not need all the fancy capabilities of the OLED Graphics Library.

You can display simple geometric shapes and write text. You get the benefit of full set of 256 ASCII characters, as opposed to the 96 character set of the OLED Library. Text can be scaled from 1 to 21, allowing you to highlight parts of your information display.

While the TFT Library blocks support full color range of various displays, the OLED display being black & white, there are only two options: black or any other color value displayed as white.

To assist with display refresh issues, there are two new blocks: defer and resume TFT display updates. These allow the user to print something to the display without actually showing it on the screen, until the resume block is executed.

We have provided an example program (PicoBricks Test) in the File / Open / Other / Examples menu, to help anyone start to experiment with the Library. It will display some of the sensor values of the PicoBricks kit.

In the example program, we are using the defer feature to collect all four sensor values, right-justify them, and write them, before resuming the display updates and actually displaying the end result.

NOTES:

1. If you have any projects written to work with the original OLED Graphics Library, and you want them to work with the TFT Library, you will need to modify your code to use the TFT Library blocks. Your old code will not function automatically with the new library.
2. The two Libraries have their own respective buffers. While it is technically possible to engage both of them, you will not be able to combine the display buffers from the two different libraries. However, you can use them in the same project one at a time, paying attention to which one has control of the display.

Enjoy.

Version 1.0, Peter Mathijssen

This project could be the basis for a school project. 

In healthcare, there are patients who have problems verbally expressing their pain. 

Sometimes being only able to use a single finger. With this project, you could develop a system where patients could alert someone when their pain goes beyond a certain level.

It uses a PicoBricks button, an OLED screen, and a buzzer.

In this sample, the blocks for the buzzer are added but not used. As a nurse, you could "talk" to your patient and decide together when help is needed and whether the buzzer should make a noise or the message should get sent. 

Think about adding a bigger button, a bigger OLED screen, a WIFI module, or a Bluetooth module so you can send an alert to a nurse. There is no casing for this project so you could also think about that.

The images used in this project were made with the help of this tutorial: 

https://wiki.microblocks.fun/snap/snap2mb_img_code

The zip-file contains the MicroBlocks ubp file.

Remark: It should be allowed on this community to upload a ubp file without having to put it in a zip-file.

After a few seconds, there is some smoke from the chip of the motor driver.

What could be the problem?

I 3dprinted a holder for the fan, so it's not blocked

Sorry for my english

When we click on the PicoBricks GP10 Button, one of the prizes configured in the "Prizes" list will be shown on the OLED display. The generation of the prize is done using the function "random number"

We can detect our ear age by using PicoBricks buzzer and button module. Let's test whether we can hear the sound by increasing the frequency of the buzzer systematically with the button.

As people get older, they cannot hear certain frequencies. This situation determines our ear age. For example;

• Anyone who is not deaf can hear a sound with a frequency of 8000Hz.
• Anyone who is under 50 age can hear a sound with a frequency of 12000Hz.
• Anyone who is under 40 age can hear a sound with a frequency of 14000Hz.
• Anyone who is under 30 age can hear a sound with a frequency of 16000Hz.
• Anyone who is under 24 age can hear a sound with a frequency of 17000Hz.
• Anyone who is under 20 age can hear a sound with a frequency of 19000Hz.

We can produce the sound at any frequency we want by using the buzzer module from PicoBricks modules. Let’s do a project that tests our ear age. The necessary modules for this project are:

• Buzzer
• Button & LED
• OLED Screen
• RGB LED

Project Video: https://twitter.com/selimgayretlii/status/1654429539693481986

Project Images

PicoBricks V1.2

MicroBlocks Code of The Project:

The Project Video

PicoBricks Modules That You Need

• RGB LED
• OLED Display
• Potentiometer
• Button & Red LED

MicroBlocks Code of The Project

You can use the following MicroBlocks code to encrypt any text you want with PicoBricks by using the ASCII table.

After specifying the text you want to encrypt in the code, each tiem you click the PicoBricks button, you will see the equivalent in ASCII table of letters in the text you want to encrypt in order. After seeing the numerical equivalent of all the characters in the text you want to encrypt in the ASCII table, the encrypted version of the text will appear on both the PicoBricks OLED screen and the MicroBlocks blocks after a 3-second countdown.

MicroBlocks Code of The ASCII Encryption

 ASCII Decryption With PicoBricks

With PicoBricks, we can decrypt a given encrypted text by using the ASCII table. For this, you can create the code blocks below and print the encrypted text you specified in the code on the OLED screen of PicoBricks.

MicroBlocks Code of The ASCII Decryption

Here are a few new keyboard + mouse features introduced in the latest PILOT release:

Manipulating blocks with menus + mouse is OK, but sometimes using the keyboard is faster and more efficient.

• Control-drag is the same as "duplicate all"
• Shift-drag is the same as "extract block"
• Control-shift-drag is the same as "duplicate block"
• When you click on a block in the Scripting Area, you will see a trashcan icon appear in the Blocks Palette section of the IDE, This is a reminder for you that deletion of blocks is possible by dragging them to the Blocks Palette area.

• GRAPH window now supports scaling of the y-Axis: When you try to plot values that are exceeding the display limits of the Graph window , you can use the new -- = + icons on the display to scale the graph.

Here are some tips to help you edit your projects more efficiently :

• You can copy and paste your blocks to the clipboard for moving them within the same project, or transferring them between projects. It certainly beats clicking on a script and scrolling the screen up or down till you reach the new location for it.
• Likewise, you can open multiple sessions of MicroBlocks in the browser, load your older projects into one, and copy paste sections of it to the new project - a good way of making use of the previously created functions etc.
• When you are copy / pasting sections of blocks that are referencing various Libraries, you do not have to worry about including them in your new project. MicroBlocks will automatically import all Libraries used by the blocks pasted and take care of defining all variables used.
• Use the -- = + icons on the Scripting Area to make the block display sizes smaller or larger, or return to the standard 100% size with the equal icon.
• When using the save picture of script option to take pictures of your projects, you do not have to constantly change the block sizes in the IDE to the desired picture size. Just use the set exported script scale option on the IDE R-click menu once and leave your block sizes at a suitable editing size. All your pictures will be at the selected size, independent of the display sizes you have set for the IDE.

Enjoy creating projects with MicroBlocks and don't forget to share them with our Community.

It's returning 0 for scaled. Guessing it sees the pot value as a string vs an integer. any way to convert it to an integer. What am i missing here?

And I realize this does not correctly scale the value. Just trying to get any math out of it. Have tried a lot of different ways to tackle this.

A little animation, so even when you don't need the OLED screen of your PicoBricks it looks important.😁

Use the potentiometer and button to put characters on the OLED.

This gives us the opportunity to use MicroBlocks WIFI and UDP libraries in our projects to implement remote control. It not only improves our project's comms speeds from the Bluetooth's a few Mbps speeds to WIFI's several hundred Mbps, it eliminates all the headaches of using special libraries and BT idiosyncrasies. It also increases device connectivity from the BT's 10m range to WIFI's 100m range, and across the Internet.

I have written a tutorial on how to implement Remote Control with WIFI + UDP for MicroBlocks:

WiFi Remote Control with UDP

Very much in keeping with the portability of the MicroBlocks across many microcontrollers, the tutorial highlights same code-base running on five different models of microcontrollers, accompanied by an Android APP written in MIT APPInventor.

Users can send UDP messages between the devices and the Android phone in broadcast fashion or point to point, and exert control over the on-board LED in each microcontroller, as well as a simulated one on the Android phone APP.

The tutorial also demonstrates how to create your own WIFI HotSpot, in case the environment one is operating in lacks a commercial WIFI signal.

It is a simple way to integrate any of the microcontrollers with WIFI capability into your projects with minimal code and great flexibility and gain performance in the process as well..

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g90a9NCKtSs

a lot of MicroBlocks being used.

PicoBricks version 1.1 has an IR sensor, instead of an IoT module. 💪

You can use this test code written with MicroBlocks to test all modules included in this new version. With this test code, you can press the specified keys on the remote and see if the modules are working correctly.

The Keys:

1-RGB LED & OLED screen

2-Red LED

3-Temp & Hum

4-Relay

5-Motor Driver

6-Buzzer

7-Potentiometer

Just drag and drop it.

Have fun.💪

A little tip.

FOSDEM 2023 is this weekend in Brussels. FOSDEM 2023 - Home

I you have time visit my devroom

FOSDEM 2023 - FOSS Educational Programming Languages devroom

One presentation is about MicroBlocks. PicoBricks and MicroBlocks are a great combination. I will bring a PicoBricks, stickers and flyers to the devroom. Maybe we can meet after the devroom finishes.

With any luck we will also be able to show MicroBlocks at the Software Freedom Conservancy stand on saturday and sunday.

Peter

The answer is in the code😉

MicroBlocks Code

Project Details

Project Images

MicroBlocks Codes of The Project

STL Files

This project was inspired by the Thingiverse design in the link.

Your imagination is the limit of what you can do with PicoBricks!

With PicoBricks, you can create most games you want using your creativity. For example, making a labyrinth can be pretty fun. With the new version PicoBricks, you can control it with a remote control.

What you need:

• PicoBricks
• 2 x servo motors
• Maze body (can be made using a 3D printer or cardboard box.)
• Connection cable
• Plastic clamps
• Remote control

MicroBlocks Code of The Project

For the mechanical parts, we got references from Thingiverse.

STL Files of The Project

After pressing the button, Picobricks makes the first guess and waits for the player to direct by using the "up", "down" and "ok" keys of the controller.

Project Algorithm

• Start when button is pressed.
• Divide the max prediction value by 2.
• If the player presses the up key, that is, if Picobricks’ prediction is less than the player’s number, divide the guess interval by 2 again and add it to the current Picobricks’ prediction.
• If the player presses the down key, that is, if Picobricks’ prediction is greater than the player’s number, divide the guess interval by 2 again and subtract it from the current Picobricks’ prediction.
• If the player presses “ok” button, end the game and congratulate Picobricks.
• Repeat the 2nd, 3rd and 4th steps until the “ok” button is pressed.
• Return the 1st step.

Project Pin Diagram

Project Images

MicroBlocks Codes of The Project

I made a very small number library for that, which is included in the ubp file.

Below is an example of how it looks on your OLED. I made use of the defer display updates and show display buffer blocks to get rid of the flickering.

https://wiki.microblocks.fun/extension_libraries/oled#defer-display-updates

and

https://wiki.microblocks.fun/extension_libraries/oled#show-display-buffer

Have fun.....

Has anybody got the digital ruler working in Microblocks IDE?

I thought my distance sensor was the culprit.

Naze sent me the necessary library and script for Python. Works great in python.

tx

Gilles

I transformed these images with the help of the following instructions

https://wiki.microblocks.fun/snap/snap2mb_img_code

You can use them in MicroBlocks now. Load the ubp file and see how it looks on your PicoBricks OLED.

The zip file just contains the library I made using the images you see.

The blocks show the demo script to rotate the images.

Have fun.....