About

The Teknikio Bluebird is a small blue gadget that can send and receive information wirelessly. The board has a Neopixel LED, speaker, Bluetooth and sensors that can be programmed by both beginners and expert coders. The development of Bluebird was funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Bluebird is a great tool to learn how to build circuits, code, and scale your ideas to an IoT network. It can attach easily to different materials to become a futuristic gizmo or wearable. Similar to Arduino, the Bluebird can also connect with external sensors, and outputs via the central connector.

Hardware: The Bluebird

The Bluebird board is embedded with sensors, radio and other fun stuff. to get the most out of your board, check the hardware components!

Getting Started

Depending on the platform you are using, following the guides below to get started on coding your first project.

• Tekniverse for Browser
• Tekniverse for iOS
• Tekniverse for macOS (Catalina or higher)
• Arduino IDE

Web Dashboard: Control Center

The first “tool” that you have in the menu is the Control Center. Here you can see incoming data from the sensor on the board, change the LED color and play tones on the speaker! You can also save and record data to your account if you are signed in. Learn more about accounts here.

Web Programming: Blocks or JavaScript

You can program the Bluebird in this web browser using Blocks or JavaScript via the Bluebird APIs:

input.onButtonPressed(Button.A, () => {
    basic.showString("Hi!");
})

input.onButtonPressed(Button.A, () => {
    basic.showString("Hi!");
})

The editor work in most modern browsers.

Compile and Flash: Your Program!

When you have your code ready, you connect your Bluebird to a computer via a USB cable, it will appear as a mounted drive (named TEKBOOT).

Compilation to ARM thumb machine code from Blocks or JavaScript happens in the browser. You save the ARM binary program to a file, which you then copy to the TEKBOOT drive, which flashes the Bluebird device with the new program.

Simulator: Test Your Code

You can run your code using the Bluebird simulator, all within the confines of a web browser. The simulator has support for the LED screen, buttons, as well as compass, accelerometer, and digital I/O pins.

basic.forever(() => {
  basic.showString("Hi!");
})
input.onButtonPressed(Button.A, () => {
    led.stopAnimation();
    basic.showLeds(`
. . . . .
. # . # .
. . . . .
# . . . #
. # # # .`);
});
input.onButtonPressed(Button.B, () => {
    led.stopAnimation();
    basic.showLeds(`
. # . # .
# . # . #
# . . . #
. # . # .
. . # . .`);
});

Resources!

We recommend you browse these docs to learn more about the web platform. We have loads of inventions, tutorials, and courses for educators to help you dig deeper into coding, IoT, design, digital justice and more!