Slide the micro:bit into the Finch tail. Make sure your micro:bit is facing the correct direction, with the A and B buttons facing up and the five holes towards the bottom. Push the micro:bit into place. The five holes will be partially covered when the micro:bit is correctly in place.

Optional step: If your micro:bit is already flashing 3 or 10 characters when powered on, you can skip this step.

Connect the micro:bit to the computer with the USB cable. 

Download Hex File

The micro:bit will appear as an external device on your computer. Download the .hex file and drag it onto the micro:bit.

Once you’ve put the .hex file onto your micro:bit, your micro:bit should start to flash ten characters on its display. You will only need to complete this step once for each Finch – as long as your device is flashing its initials, you are ready to connect via Bluetooth.

You can now unplug the USB cable from the micro:bit. You won’t need the cable any longer because you will be using Bluetooth to connect to the Finch Robot.

To turn on the Finch press and hold the power button on the bottom of your Finch until until one or more of the LEDs in the tail turn on. This should take about 2 seconds. Ten characters should now be flashing on the micro:bit.

When you turn on your Finch the color of the tail LEDs will indicate the battery charge level.

– If all 4 tail LEDs are GREEN this means your Finch is fully charged.

– If 3 tail LEDs are GREEN this means your Finch is partially charged.

– If tail LEDs are YELLOW this means you have about 2 hours of charge left on your Finch.

– If 1 tail LED is RED this means you should charge your Finch immediately. You may lose Bluetooth connection at this point.

If the Finch battery becomes very low while you are programming, all the tail LEDs will quickly blink RED 5 times, once per minute until you plug the Finch in for charging.

To charge the Finch, plug the USB-C cable (micro-USB on older models) into the charging slot beneath the Finch’s tail.

Plugging the micro USB into the micro:bit will NOT charge the Finch!

Fully charging the Finch takes 7 hours. We suggest charging the Finch overnight.

The micro:bit is not needed to charge the Finch.

To turn off the Finch after you are done using it, hold down the power button until the beak turns red. 

The Finch will turn itself off to save battery power if it is inactive for 10 minutes without connecting to Bluetooth, or for 20 minutes while connected to Bluetooth.

When turning off, the Finch will play a disconnecting sound and the beak LED will be red. The Finch will also show its battery status using the tail LEDs.

This module will show you how to use a browser-based web app to program the Finch. Start by going to brython.birdbraintechnologies.com. You can use this website with Chromebooks or any Windows/Mac/Linux computer with built-in Bluetooth.

Click Find Robots. You will see a list of devices that start with FN (Finch), BB (Hummingbird), or MB (micro:bit). You may see one robot or many, depending on how many are nearby. If you have downloaded the most recent BirdBrain firmware(from step 3 of section 1) then your micro:bit will flash a code starting with #FN and ending in 5 numbers and letters. Look for this code in the connection menu and connect to this device. You can also use masking tape to label your Finch with its device name for quicker identification in the future.

You will hear a sound as the Finch connects, and the initials will stop flashing on the micro:bit. Once you have connected to a Finch, the name of your robot will appear on the screen, along with a battery indicator. Brython will load automatically.

Brython loads with a sample program. To run the program on your Finch, click the play button. There are also buttons to stop the program and upload or download Brython code.

If you become disconnected while programming your Finch, click the expand button to see the Find Robots button and reconnect.

You can use Brython online or offline. To use Brython offline with the Finch, install it on your Chromebook using the orange install button.

This section will show you how to use an offline Python editor with the Finch on Mac/Windows computers. Start by installing Python and any offline Python editor. The screenshots here will show the IDLE Python editor, which is automatically installed on your computer with Python.

Next, install the BlueBird Connector. This software will handle the Bluetooth connection with the Finch robot. You must run it in the background while you are programming the Finch in Python.

Download the BirdBrain Python library.

Open the BlueBird Connector. It will begin finding the robots around you. Click on the name of the robot that matches the initials on your device. The initials are the three letters that flash before the # symbol.

When you connect to your Finch, you will hear a series of tones, and the robot will show up in the purple “CONNECTED” section of the BlueBird Connector.

You can minimize the BlueBird Connector, but you should leave it open the entire time that you are using the Finch. If at any point you have trouble with your robot, you should come back to the BlueBird Connector, check your Bluetooth connection, and reconnect if necessary. You can also check your battery level in the BlueBird Connector.

The BirdBrain Python folder contains the main library (BirdBrain.py) and a test file (FinchTest.py). To test that everything is working properly, open FinchTest.py in your IDE. To run the test program in IDLE, choose Run/Run Module. The Finch’s beak should blink 10 times.