Ngong Road Children's Foundation

We empower Nairobi children living in poverty to transform their lives through education and support, leading to employment.

Coding Resources for the Hummingbird Robotics Kit

1. microBlocks (Live-Coding Environment)

  • What it is: A free, Scratch-like block-based programming environment that supports live, interactive coding—changes take effect instantly as you click blocks, and programs run right on the board microblocks.fun+1.
  • Key Features:
    • Live Programming: Immediate feedback—no compile-and-upload delays microblocks.fun+1.
    • Parallelism: Run multiple scripts simultaneously (e.g., animations and motors together) microblocks.fun+1.
  • Use in the browser or app:
    • Works directly in Chrome or Edge—no install required microblocks.fun.
    • Option to install as a standalone app on Chromebook, Windows, macOS, or Linux microblocks.fun.
  • Learn more & start coding: Explore tutorials, user guides, and interactive ‘Run’ options at the MicroBlocks official site microblocks.funlearn.microblocks.fun.
  • Link: https://microblocks.fun/

2. Snap! for Hummingbird

3. Official Hummingbird Coding Website

  • What it offers: The BirdBrain Technologies hub for everything related to the Hummingbird Robotics Kit—materials, tutorials, and curriculum support.
  • Highlights:
    • Find programming guides, building instructions, educator resources, projects, and printables all in one place: BirdBrain Technologies.
  • Link: Navigate to the Hummingbird section on the BirdBrain Technologies site at birdbraintechnologies.com.

Summary Table for Quick Copy

PlatformDescriptionBrowser Link
microBlocksLive, interactive block codinghttps://microblocks.fun/
Snap! for HummingbirdScratch-style coding for roboticshttps://snap.birdbraintechnologies.com/
BirdBrain (Hummingbird Coding Site)Official resource hubbirdbraintechnologies.com → Hummingbird section
https://makecode.microbit.org/

Free e-Books Sources

SourceDescriptionLink
American LiteratureIt includes a wide range of genres, such as fiction (novels, short stories, poetry, drama) and non-fiction (essays, historical documents).https://americanliterature.com/
BookSmartAll-in-one solution that provides thousands of free books, learning materials, and activities in various languages for K-12 children.https://booksmart.worldreader.org/
eKitabuDiscover Worldreader’s BookSmart reading experience app—offering free books and fun, educational activities for children aged 0-12 in multiple languages.https://open.ekitabu.com/
Project Gutenberg60,000+ classic books in plain text, HTML, and Kindle formatshttps://www.gutenberg.org
Open Library (by Internet Archive)Digital library of over 2M scanned bookshttps://openlibrary.org
Internet Archive BooksFull library of downloadable scanned books (PDF, EPUB, etc.)https://archive.org/details/texts
Standard EbooksProfessionally formatted open-source ebookshttps://standardebooks.org
ManyBooks.netCurated selection from Gutenberg and othershttps://manybooks.net
PDF DriveFree academic and non-fiction PDFshttps://www.pdfdrive.com
SnapplifySnapplify is a digital education platform that provides teachers/students with access to a wide range of media, tools, and resources to enhance their teaching/teaching.https://nrcf.snapplify.com/
Google Books (Public Domain)Many classic books are free to downloadhttps://books.google.com
WikiBooksOpen-content textbooks on various subjects
Focus: Science, math, computing, humanities		https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page