On Saturday January 27th I visited the 2018 Bett Show (British Educational Training and Technology) at ExCeL London. It is an annual trade show where the technology community for education meets. This year was the 34th Bett show. Visitors got the chance to explore new stuff in the world of educational tech.
On arrival, I was amazed at the size of the event. It reminded me of an airport because of the amount of people attending. Instead of suitcases, everybody had bags packed with swag!
The show was full of Edtech exhibitors who were either running workshops or showcasing their products. Some of them were really new startups interested in receiving feedback and comments from visitors, in order to help them develop and improve their products.
Luckily, I had enough time to join in with two workshops. The first one was “Microsoft Hacking STEM and Lego” and the second, “Hands-on STEAM education workshop with Pi-Top”. At the Microsoft and Lego workshop I had to make a contraption out of lego which would help to manoeuvre an electronic measuring device. It was then connected to a computer app which displayed and recorded the distances measured.
At the Pi-Top workshop, I had the chance of doing some physical computing which I always enjoy! I used the Pi-Top breadboard to prototype a traffic light and a buzzer. The coding bit was done with the Pi-Top computer. This workshop was quite interesting and the team was really friendly and helped me out a lot when I was stuck on something. The Pi-Top is quite a unique computer!
Realistically, there was no way that I could visit all of the exhibitors at the show. However, I had a special reason that made me find time to head towards the Micro:bit area. In November, I entered a robot that I designed & made into the Micro:bit first birthday challenge – and was announced as the winner of the best working device category. My robot & some of the other entries were on display at the Micro:bit stand. It felt great, seeing my robot on display & meeting some of the micro:bit team. They were all very nice with me and congratulated me in person! A member of the crew told me that my robot had been popular at the show! I could not be happier to hear this!
They had loads of other cool stuff in their area, the most eye catching feature was an electronic sculpture-like display made from 1000 Micro:bits.
The Birdbrain Technologies stand was really fun. They were displaying cool robots which had been crafted out of cardboard and brought to life with servos, motors & LEDs – which were connected to a Birdbrain Technologies Hummingbird board. The robots were activated by different sensors. One of robots opened & closed its mouth & rolled its eyes when food (robot food) was placed into its mouth. Thank you Birdbrain Technologies – you’ve given me some new ideas for my next robot project!.
I would definitely love to go back next year in 2019! The dates have already been announced and it will be from 23-26 January 2019! I might see you there!
Hi, my name is Avye and I love making, coding, designing, exploring new technology and swimming! This site is about the things I get to experience, discover and enjoy. Welcome to my world!