So… your absolutely sure GHI isnt giving up on gadgeteer? Because you know they could have used a gadgeteer socket on the brainpad, but decided to go for mikrobus. It just made me think, you know, that maybe they were phasing gadgeteer out. Are you positive?
And certainly, let’s not mistake a pragmatic engineering decision for a strategic statement. It seems that in this limited case, this was the right tool for the right job, nothing more.
Then why this particular (#1 !) requirement that rules out Gadgeteer ?
GHI is building (and selling) Gadgeteer modules and they choose a connector that also rules out all of their modules ?!
Don’t you find that quite surprising to loose such an opportunity to promote Gadgeteer ?
I am not sure why this seems to be such a sticking point for everyone, we already had an expansion header designed to be used with the related teaching curriculum and a breadboard. After several local “classes” with people outside of GHI including the random person(s) at Microsoft, we decided to change the pinout to the be the same pinout as a click module. This would make it simple for anyone who is creating their own curriculum to use click modules instead of breadboarding.
Why do this instead of using a Gadgeteer socket? It’s quite simple, we believe so strongly in teaching programming to the next generation of nerds that it supersedes the need to monetize every single thing that GHI produces.
Because I think Gary didn’t quite make it obvious enough, I’ll add just a little more. Gus originally just wanted female headers on the board so that these type of wires would be all that’s needed to connect the BrainPad to a standard breadboard. These wires will not connect directly to a Gadgeteer socket. So, Gadgeteer is out for this purpose. Then he decided that since they’re going to have a female header there anyway then they might as well go ahead and make it just slightly more useful by arranging it in a Click compatible format. It’s really that simple.
He’s not trying to sell more hardware. He’s trying to sell less hardware and keep the cost of ownership for this educational tool as low as possible. If he wanted to sell more hardware then he would have added a Gadgeteer socket and required you to buy a Gadgeteer Breadboard X1 module.
@ Bec a Fuel - MikroBUS is terrible for teaching! This is my personal opinion. Gadgeteer is the way to go but the Brain Pad takes a complete different approach. I think every student should have a BrainPad and a Gadgeteer kit.
The wires @ ianlee74 pointed out is good for teaching electronics. To show students how to wire LEDs…etc. We actually did not mark the board with anything about click or MikroBUS to not confuse anyone. The board is marked with the signals that are provided by the pins… always has been.
@ Gus - I think letting the virgin students focus on learning programming, and not have to worry about all the electronics, is brilliant. After getting a little programming knowledge, and using the onboard sensors and stuff, they will be motivated to learn a bit more about electronics. It is always easier to learn within a familiar context.