Small, programmable boards that teach children to code are becoming a trend thanks to the wonderful efforts of Raspberry Pi. The BBC announced this week that their micro:bit mini-computer is now available for pre-ordering, and is expected to ship from July.

Having been shipped to every Year 7 pupil in the country earlier this year, the matchbox-sized, single-board computer with 16KB of RAM has been explicitly designed for the smartphone generation - you can even compile scripts and simulate programs on the go, through the accelerometer sensor on your phone.

This is the same amount of RAM as the Acorn-designed BBC Micro Model A of 35 years ago - the first time the Beeb launched a computer for education use. So, really - the micro:bit computer is nowhere near as powerful as other boards such as Intel’s Quark, Samsung’s Artik 10 or Raspberry Pi.

But being so stripped down is what makes it a real teaching aid. Anything more powerful, and you are simply a user - not a coder.

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Computer

Being involved in tech as a maker - not just a consumer - is becoming more attractive as a career option. I recently took part in a roundtable, which was hosted by the Mayor’s Office at City Hall, on this very topic. The government is keen to push a £5 million programme that encourages young Londoners to get coding, in order to fill the many thousands of jobs cropping up at tech companies all over the country.

How to do this? Well, you could start off by teaching kids how the Google search engine works, or how Snapchat creates its photo filters. But those systems comprise millions of lines of code! Not a good starting point.

In contrast, the micro:bit is immediately accessible and lets you learn by real experience about, say, event-driven programming - a nice introduction to the Internet of Things.

Stack Overflow and Git are full of talented coders, too. Many are self-taught, without going to university or other kind of formal training.

Yet somehow the digital skills gap in the UK is more present than ever. I hope the micro:bit and its competitors change the nerdy perception of working in tech, for good. Writing a line of code should soon be as normal as catching the bus.

Image courtesy of Tech Will Save Us