Learn IoT with Kid-Friendly Plug-and-Play IoT Devices for Class or Home, Powered by JacDac

On today’s show, Jim is joined by Peli De Halleux, a research software engineer at Microsoft who has been working on simplifying IoT devices to not only make programming them much, much easier, but also more robust and kid friendly. Peli is here to show off JacDac, new hardware designed for hobbyists and the classroom that reduces the barrier to entry when building IoT applications. JacDac leverages the BBC microbit and Microsoft's MakeCode block based coding editor, along with plug-and-play connectors and sensors, and a full simulator environment that runs in any web browser.
Learn more and build this yourself at aka.ms/lgpc/jacdac.
0:00 Introduction
0:29 Welcome Peli!
1:10 Introducing JacDac, a kid friendly IoT system for classrooms that uses the BBC microbit
2:00 The JacDac microbit connector and sensors
2:55 Is JacDac kid proof? Jim tests it out by yanking on cables
4:47 The history of JacDac building plug and play IoT hardware with a simulator
6:58 JacDac began in a NYC fashion show
7:57 Where did the name JacDac come from?
8:21 The evolution of JacDac for use in education with Microsoft MakeCode
10:52 How does JacDac work under the hood? Jim and Peli geek out
12:04 Connect a JacDac device to a browser and see the interactions live
14:32 Simulate hardware in the browser
15:18 Hardware properties and events
16:03 Coding JacDac using MakeCode at makecode.microbit.org/
18:45 Plug in a button and see it in the MakeCode editor, and control your program with real hardware
20:26 Bolting JacDac modules together to avoid cables thanks to the JacDac shape system - aka.ms/lgpc/jacdac/shape
22:33 Get started with JacDac! aka.ms/lgpc/jacdac
Presented by @JimBobBennett
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This show was recorded at the Microsoft Reactor in Redmond.
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