Hifive to 5K

The purpose of this little project is to demonstrate the capabilities of the awesome HiFive Dr Who coding board (https://www.hifiveinventor.com/) While similar in principle to the BBCs other offering (the Micro:bit) this board adds a fully featured ESP32 wifi chip into the mix along with its ability to access internal and external sensors and addon board.

The plan is to launch the HiFive along with a group of similar educational and scientific payloads to 5000′ at the September 2021 Midland Sky Launch.

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HiFive a new board

I was so lucky to be approached by Kara Iaconis (Global Head of Leaning BBC) in December of 2019 to support the BBC with their new HiFive development board. I’d created a lot of learning content for the BBC Micro:bit which is posted on the microbitsandbobs website, but Kara and her team were very clear that this was something new and something different. The board is tied together with BBC Dr Who (13th Dr) and Tynker Learning and through the online lessons and content young leaners can problem solve and develop code to support The Dr though a range of adventures. The story mode works especially well with the block coding environment as well as the python coding toolkit provided by Tynker.

This board is a little special though. Not only is is a RiscV based package from SiFive and have an array of built in sensors and an edge connector just like its cousin The Micro:bit. This devices also has a full colour RGB Matrix display and built in ESP32 bluetooth and wifi board making this a true IOT device.

I was able to work with the team seeing this board develop through its iterations until the final product was ready for market. I was even able to get some example boards into the hands of my students for product testing which was an amazing experience for them.

This board is not just for kids though, it’s a powerful riscV and ESP32 development board and I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time developing a range of resources and demos for the board.

Next stop – Lets get it in rocket 🙂