MakerAsia KBX is a Cool Extension Case for KidBright ESP32 Board

Last week, I wrote about KidBright32, an ESP32 board aiming to teach STEM to students in Thailand, a bit like BBC Micro:bit but with more advanced features, and all KidBright training course and tutorial in Thai language.

The project also been partnering with MakerAsia to create a cool-looking extension enclosure for the board calld KBX (KidBright Extension) with display, USB, I/O ports etc…

MakerAsia KBX case specifications:

• TFT Display with Touch
• USB OTG port with support for Keyboard and JoyStick
• SD Card slot
• I/O Extension port with support for I2C, SPI, UART/PGM, and 15 GPIO’s
• Various buttons and LEDs

The two LED dot Matrix displays, plus buttons, LEDs, and + buzzer around are already part of KidBright32 board. It’s unclear whether a battery is included in the kit, or you can somehow fit one inside, as the photos show a micro USB cable connected to the box.

They also appears to have an extra IO expansion module that connect to the USB port and I2C port on the right of KBX to make accessing IOs easier. In theory, you’d be able to program the board without a computer by adding a keyboard and using the display. That’d be  some sort of ESP32 mini PC so to speak, although the small touchscreen display may make it hard to use.

The firmware is said to come with JS32 JavaScript Engine running on the ESP-IDF development framework, and allows the control of all ESP32 functions and I/Os.

MakerAsia KBX will probably never be available outside of Thailand, but I found the design interesting, especially if it can run on batteries, and maybe it will give others some ideas to implement their own. If you are based in Thailand, the company/organization will start taking pre-order for KBX at the Thailand Industry Expo 2018 on August 2-5 at the IMPACT Arena, Exhibition and Convention Center in Muang Thong Thani.

More info and photos can be found on KidBright.club Facebook page.

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