micro:bit unit
Teach in orderSmart City Knights
A four-day plugged unit that takes students from meeting the micro:bit to building a working smart-city gadget — precision, algorithms, and engineering, in order.
4 lessons · Grades 3-5 · ~5 hr total
A connected, day-by-day unit. Students meet the micro:bit, learn why a computer needs exact instructions, design the algorithms that drive a smart-city feature, and build a working gadget on the final day. Each day depends on the one before, so teach them in sequence — the pathway below tracks where your class is in the arc.
- 1
Unplugged · 80 min
Smart City Knights · Day 1 — Meet the micro:bit
Day 1 of the Smart City Knights camp. Students discover that a 'smart city' is just everyday places — streetlights, signs, crosswalks — given senses and instructions by tiny computers. They act out Input → Process → Output, map micro:bit sensors onto a city scene, and tour the board, sorting every feature into inputs and outputs. Mostly unplugged, with an optional 10-minute device demo.
CS/Technology — grades 3-5
Open lesson → - 2
Unplugged · 80 min
Smart City Knights · Day 2 — Be Exact
Day 2 of the Smart City Knights camp. Computers do EXACTLY what you say, in order — no more, no less. Students prove it with the famous 'Robo-Chef' sandwich (the teacher follows literal instructions and makes a mess), debug it together, then route a delivery 'drone' across a floor grid as a Robot-and-Programmers trio. In Session 2 they program a smart crosswalk sign on paper with cut-out MakeCode block cards and fix broken programs as Royal Debuggers. They also crack how a screen stores a picture — pixels as 1s and 0s — with a Colour by Numbers decode that reveals a micro:bit icon. Fully unplugged.
CS/Technology — grades 3-5
Open lesson → - 3
Unplugged + plugged · 80 min
Smart City Knights · Day 3 — Algorithms & City Problems
Day 3 of the Smart City Knights camp. Cities solve hard problems — traffic, schedules, searching — with clever step-by-step strategies. Students play one big unplugged city-problem game (the Orange Run for routing & deadlock, or Knight City Zone Scheduling for graph coloring), name the winning strategy as an algorithm, then cross into MakeCode for the first time: they plan a gadget on paper, build a scrolling Smart City Info Sign as a guaranteed win, and start their Day-4 project. The unplugged-to-plugged hinge of the week.
CS/Technology — grades 3-5
Open lesson → - 4
Plugged · 80 min
Smart City Knights · Day 4 — Build a Smart-City Gadget
Day 4 of the Smart City Knights camp — project day. Each student picks a smart-city gadget (Smart Streetlight, People Counter, Crosswalk Signal, or Heat/Noise Monitor), builds it in MakeCode from a recipe card, tests and debugs it in the simulator, then FLASHES it to a real micro:bit and tests it in the real world (cover it to make it dark, clap at it, walk past it). The day ends with the Knight City Expo gallery walk, Junior Knight Engineer certificates, and a programmed device to take home. Fully plugged.
CS/Technology — grades 3-5
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