News

With only a few days to go we thought that the time was right to give you a little last minute inspiration and to wish you all a happy Halloween from Kitronik!

We are holding our 1st CPD Teacher Training Day and we would like to invite Teachers along to Kitronik HQ on the 24th November 2016 where there will be two sessions, one delivered by Just Add Sharks and one delivered by Kitronik.

Yesterday saw the launch of the micro:bit Educational Foundation, the new non-profit organisation tasked with driving the next stages of the BBC micro:bit development and rolling out the micro:bit to Europe and beyond.

Kitronik will be at the 5th Annual Derby Mini Maker Faire this Saturday the 22nd October between 10am - 4pm at the Derby Silk Mill, why not pop down and say hi! We'll have the 1,000 micro:bit display along with an assortment of other cool things to show you. See you there!

Now available to order at Kitronik are three new lines that will help you bring your design and technology project ideas and lessons to life. As Design and Technology is a large and varied subject we are always on the lookout for new lines that will help teachers deliver the wide ranging syllabus, be that materials, components or new electronics kits.

Team BBC micro:bit has teamed up with the health research charity the Wellcome Trust on their latest project, The Crunch. They want to hear all about how we eat, so that they can start talking about how food has the power to change our bodies and our whole environment. There will also be a BBC micro:bit firmware update that will give the BBC micro:bit the extra functionality that it will need.

As has been highlighted in the most recent BBC micro:bit newsletter, we have just launched a new and improved version of our very popular Motor Driver Board for the BBC micro:bit, The Motor Driver Board V2.

Whilst many of our customers enjoy a well earned holiday during August, we're busy putting the final touches to some exciting new kits, and bringing you a couple of additions to our materials section.

MP Michelle Donelan has secured the support of almost 90 MP's for a proposed change to EBacc that would allow schools to class design and technology as a science and offer it as a choice to students.

Robox Update Automaker To V2.01.02 . As CEL Robox have moved deeper into dual material printing, recent updates to their Automaker software have been geared towards facilitating this. There have been a number of multi-material related new features and a few days ago they updated Automaker to V2.01.02. This added another new feature for removing the gap between the support material and your part, when using a dual material head.

I never expected to be thinking about work last weekend when I was at the East Midlands Flower Show, but when I saw the fantastic creations of Burned by Design and went over to have a closer look. It turned out that the owner, Alex, is a Design and Technology teacher.

The summer holidays are almost upon us and D&T Department stocks may be beginning to dwindle, so why not replenish D&T stocks before the summer to ensure the new school year gets off to a flying start.

This week and next, armed with BBC micro:bits and accessories, Kitronik are breaking free from the office and attending fun education based events that are aimed at showing young people and educators that there is a world of opportunity out there for people with the right skills.

On Wednesday the 8th of June our very own Tim Goodman went to Nottingham Trent University with a small group of Design and Technology Teachers for a day designed to help them drive ideas forward. The course was hosted by Nottingham Trent University's Kerry Truman and began with a briefing on all the different opportunities there at NTU for such learning.

Our veneered MDF sheets have been very popular, but we've been asked many times to sell veneer on it's own. We're happy to introduce two new flexible wood veneers, and we got Kevin to tell us about the in this video.

We've sold 0.8mm Polypropylene Sheets for some time now, and have often been asked about thinner sizes. We've now introduced a range which is just 0.5mm thick.

This Pedestrian Crossing project was submitted to us by Thomas Stratford. Thomas started this project to try out the pre-written code that came with the IET Pedestrian Crossing resource. The aim is to use the BBC micro:bit to develop a prototype for a pedestrian crossing for a local secondary school.

Our good friend Andy Thompson recently got in touch to tell us about a Key Stage 2 D&T training day that he is running on July 8th at Highgate School in London. This ‘hands-on’ event is specifically designed to help Primary School colleagues with limited resources and/or training opportunities to build confidence in the use of tools, equipment and materials.

We were excited once again to be at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle all weekend for the UK Maker Faire 2016. The UK Maker Faire is the UK's biggest collection of hackers, crafters, coders, DIYers and garden shed inventors and offers a great way to spend an enjoyable day out with the family whilst offering endless learning opportunities via fun activities.

If you've ever done any projects involving Perspex, no matter how careful you've been to maximise your usage, you'll always have at least some scrap Perspex left over. Harry Gowlett, a second year Secondary Design and Technology Education student at Nottingham Trent University, shares some excellent tips on how you might recycle your Perspex offcuts into useful items.