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Showing posts from November, 2020

Programming Micro:bit remotely

The Micro:bit track of our local Coderdojo went virtual during a COVID-19 peak. This created a challenge: not all kids have Micro:bits at home, and the makecode Micro:bit simulator doesn't simulate all extensions and functions. We provided an e-mail gateway to remotely program Micro:bits, with a live webcam view of the running programs. Our solution runs on a Linux machine, which could be a regular PC or even a Raspberry Pi. Please make sure your Linux box can power the Micro:bits and the extensions you connect, or otherwise use a powered USB hub to connect them. Create a mailbox  We created a dedicated mailbox that is accessible via IMAP or POP3. In our case, we used a local mailserver, but an account at an external e-mail provider could be used as well.  Install fetchmail and procmail  Fetchmail can poll an IMAP or POP3 mailbox and save the fetched mails locally. Local delivery is done via procmail. Our fetchmail config is #### .fetchmailrc   set daemon 60   set logfi