micro:bit Python Editor

Display

The micro:bit's LED display output

Images: built-in
The micro:bit has lots of built-in images that you can show on the display.
Select image:
Code example:
display.show(Image.HEART)
sleep(400)
The API documentation contains a full list of the built-in images.
Scroll
You can scroll words and numbers on the micro:bit’s LED display:
Code example:
display.scroll('score')
display.scroll(23)
You can add optional extra parameters to control the way scrolling works.
The delay parameter controls the speed of scrolling. A delay less than 150ms will make scrolling faster than normal.
If the loop parameter has a value of True, the scrolling will loop continuously. The default value is False which means there is no looping.
The wait parameter controls whether the program waits for the scrolling to stop before carrying out the next instruction.
This code will keep scrolling the word 'score' faster than normal in a loop, and play music at the same time:
Code example:
import music

display.scroll('score', delay=100, loop=True, wait=False)
music.play(music.ODE)
Show
You can show words and numbers on the LED display one character at a time:
Code example:
display.show('score')
display.show(23)
You can add optional delay, loop and wait parameters.
The delay parameter controls the speed at which multiple characters, digits or images are displayed. Any delay below 400ms will be faster than normal, anything above 400ms slower than normal.
If the loop parameter is set to True, the show function will loop continuously. The default value is False which means there is no looping.
The wait parameter controls how long the program waits before the next instruction is executed.
This example will keep showing a countdown in a loop with 1 second between each number and will not wait before executing the next instruction:
Code example:
display.show(9876543210, delay=1000, loop=True, wait=False)
Images: make your own
You can make your own images. Each LED's brightness is represented as a number between 0 (off) and 9 (brightest):
Code example:
display.show(Image('00300:'
'03630:'
'36963:'
'03630:'
'00300'))
This example shows a star that is bright in the middle and gets fainter towards the edges of the LED display.
Clear the display
Clear the display, turning all the LEDs off:
Code example:
display.clear()
Pixels
A pixel is an individual dot in an image. Each LED is a pixel in a micro:bit image. Each pixel has an x,y co-ordinate, starting at the top left with 0,0.
Select:
Use numbers 0 to 9 to select how bright you want each pixel to be, with 9 being the brightest. This will light the top left LED as bright as it can go:
Code example:
display.set_pixel(0,0,9)
This program will fill the LED display one pixel at a time:
Code example:
for y in range(5):
for x in range(5):
display.set_pixel(x,y,9)
sleep(50)
Note that this uses a nested loop, a loop inside a loop.

API

For usage and examples, see Reference

gc
Control the garbage collector
log
Log data to your micro:bit V2
machine
Low-level utilities
math
Mathematical functions
microbit
Pins, images, sounds, temperature and volume
microbit.accelerometer
Measure the acceleration of the micro:bit and recognise gestures
microbit.audio
Play sounds using the micro:bit (import audio for V1 compatibility)
microbit.compass
Use the built-in compass
microbit.display
Show text, images and animations on the 5×5 LED display
microbit.i2c
Communicate with devices using the I²C bus protocol
microbit.microphone
Respond to sound using the built-in microphone (V2 only)
microbit.speaker
Control the built-in speaker (V2 only)
microbit.spi
Communicate with devices using the serial peripheral interface (SPI) bus
microbit.uart
Communicate with a device using a serial interface
micropython
MicroPython internals
music
Create and play melodies
neopixel
Individually addressable RGB and RGBW LED strips
os
Access the file system
power
Manage the power modes of the micro:bit (V2 only)
radio
Communicate between micro:bits with the built-in radio
random
Generate random numbers
speech
Make the micro:bit talk, sing and make other speech like sounds
struct
Pack and unpack primitive data types
sys
System specific functions
time
Measure time and add delays to programs

Untitled project

# Imports go at the top

from microbit import *

# Code in a 'while True:' loop repeats forever

while True:

display.show(Image.HEART)

sleep(1000)

display.scroll('Hello')

No rows logged

Images: built-in

Scroll

Show

Images: make your own

Clear the display

Pixels

Emotion badge

Step counter

Activity picker

Send a smile

Dice

Clap lightsV2

Frère Jacques

gc

log

machine

math

microbit

microbit​.​accelerometer

microbit​.​audio

microbit​.​compass

microbit​.​display

microbit​.​i2c

microbit​.​microphone

microbit​.​speaker

microbit​.​spi

microbit​.​uart

micropython

music

neopixel

os

power

radio

random

speech

struct

sys

time

Untitled project

Clap lights
V2

microbit.accelerometer

microbit.audio

microbit.compass

microbit.display

microbit.i2c

microbit.microphone

microbit.speaker

microbit.spi

microbit.uart