A pxt-microbit timer for the Pomodoro Techinque®
Microbit has 25 leds and 2 buttons, an ideal platform to realize a pomodoro-like timer.
When just started, the display shows a welcome screen with a triangle.
Clicking on the A button (on the left), you start a pomodoro. Just after the click, for a few moments the display show you the number of this pomodoro (since the last reboot).
Then the pomodoro starts. Each led is a minute, and at the very beginning all the leds are turned on. Every minute, a LED goes off.
During the last minute, the last led blinks, to catch the attention of the user. Note that since Microbit does not have a loud speaker, blinking is the easier way to catch attention. And it doesn't bother your room mate :)
When the pomodoro ends, a confirmation screen is shown. Again, blinking.
At any moment you can press the B button (on the right) to start a break. Leds during the break are shown in the lower part of the microbit, to easily distinguish work and break time at a glance.
Each time you press the B button, you add 5 minutes to the break. That is, if you want to start a long break of 15 minutes, just press the B button three times.
When the break ends, a blinking confirmation screen is shown, with the shape of a diamond.
That's all! Enjoy!
If you want to align the shown number of the current pomodoro with your daily counter, at the very beginning of a pomodoro you can press multiple time the A button. Note however that if you press the same button during a pomodoro, the counter will be not increased, because restarting a running pomodoro makes it void, according with the official recommendations.
According to The Pomodoro Technique book, v1.3, paragraph 3.10, there are a number of recommendations for a pomodoro to be effective. I followed these recommendations when designing the Domato-Timer:
- to start a new pomodoro requires an explicit action of the user, i.e. press a button, as declaration of user determination to start working on the activity
- clearly show how much time is left
Since Microbit doesn't have a speaker, Domato does not make any ticking sound as time passes. I didn't replace this tick feature using leds, because it would have been too distracting.
When time is up, Domato uses LED blinking to catch the attention of the user.
You can find the javascript source code of this project in the src folder. This is a screenshot of how the block editor looks like:
To see the code on your PXT/Microbit editor, you have two possibilities:
- import the .hex file of this project into PXT (you can find the .hex file in the target directory)
- create a new project, switch to the javascript editor, than copy-paste the javascript source code.
Domato is a wordplay between the translation of tomato in turkish (domates) and the word tomato itself. It is a small contribution to denounce the block of Wikipedia site in Turkey and other censorship actions.
This is the about page of the Makecode site that was been used to make this project.
Note: Makecode is the new name of the pxt site.
About makecode.microbit.org
A Blocks / JavaScript code editor for the micro:bit powered by Microsoft MakeCode.
makecode.microbit.org version: 0.12.40
Microsoft MakeCode version: 0.12.94
C++ runtime version: v2.0.0-rc11
All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners.