It has been a few weeks since our CodeBugs arrived here in Milan and after playing around with some of the sample programs and thinking about their features I have decided to use these with next session’s Year 10 students as an introduction to the iGCSE Computer Science course in September.
While they worked really well with the Raspberry Pi I struggled to get the CodeBugs working with IDLE on the MacBook. Installing packages via Terminal updated the Python 2.7 install that comes with the OS and – for me anyway – Homebrew complicated what should have been a very easy process. In Visual Studio if you wanted to use a module library you simply added it to the project and IDLE does not have this function.
I found PyCharm today – an IDE for Python that allows me to add the codebug_tether module (and any others I need) with the minimum of fuss. Now my CodeBug can be programmed while connected via USB to my MacBook! As an added bonus I learned more about Virtual Environments.
To make it easier for my students to get going with their CodeBugs in September I created a 20-step guide linked here. It’s CC0 so please feel free to use and adapt as required. If you find any mistakes or it just doesn’t work for you in the same way please let me know.
