"Whale of a Time": A School Fair Game Made with Micro:bit and Imagination

Inspired by a fun game at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, my daughter had a brilliant idea: let’s build a game for our school fair! Not just any game—one that lights up every time you score a hit by shooting a whale in the mouth!

Designing the Whale Game

The core idea was simple but exciting: every time a player hits the target, lights would activate, showing progress. My daughter wanted something she could help design and build herself, so we used ChatGPT to brainstorm and generate images of the Whale. She eventually settled on a cute whale illustration with a removable tooth—perfect for hiding a compact rain sensor (just 5cm x 3cm) inside the whale’s mouth. Originally we had planned to print it on A3 paper and laminate it but for $30 we got it beautifully printed on corrugated plastic sheeting and this makes it waterproof.

Choosing Micro:bit

We decided to use the Micro:bit for the electronics, since she had used them at school and was already familiar with block-based coding. It was a great way to make the project both educational and accessible.

Building the First Prototype

We started small:

• A rain sensor detected when something was "shot" into the whale’s mouth.

• If the sensor read three values over 300, it would light up a single LED—a basic hit indicator. First simple prototype can be found here!

Then we added more complexity:

• A counter was introduced that lit up one light per second on the Micro:bit LED matrix, giving someone 25 seconds to get all the hits before time was up.

Final Touches and Polishing with AI

As the game evolved, we added:

• Five individual LEDs to act as hit indicators.

• A button to reset the game after each round.

By this stage, our code was starting to look a bit messy—so we turned to ChatGPT again. With just a few prompts, it helped clean up the code and improve the functionality. The result? A polished, reliable game that’s now ready for the school fair!

The Finished Product: “Whale of a Time”

"Whale of a Time" is now a fully working game that blends creativity, coding, and hands-on building. Most importantly, it was a project my daughter led—from concept to completion—with just the right amount of help from tech and teamwork.

We can't wait to see kids lining up to play at the fair!