Experiences in Developing and Testing BBC Micro: bit Games in a K-12 Coding Club during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the traditional teaching and learning process, moving students' educational hands-on activities carried out in the classroom to home activities that include the use of online tools. Here we describe an after-class online coding club conducted for a month, where elementary (primary) school students programmed and tested games running on the BBC Micro: bit microcontroller board. By developing gaming mini-projects, the students learned computing topics such as logic, sensors, random number generation, game development and programming, and how small physical computing mini-projects were conducted. In this paper, we describe how students and an instructor developed and tested games made for the Micro: bit, running an online simulator and physically using the Micro: bit at home. The paper shows lessons learned on developing games with the BBC Micro: bit in the coding club, and challenges that students encountered in the game development with the BBC Micro: bit. Future work includes multisensory educational gaming projects with the BBC Micro: bit.