Teach Digital Technologies with a Spark

The Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies expects students to understand how data is represented, how hardware and software work together, and how digital systems process information. Yet for many students, computers remain a black box — they type in code and something happens, but the inner workings stay hidden.

The B4 Spark makes these concepts visible. Through hands-on missions, students wire components, store and process data in binary, and watch a simple computer come to life — building the exact knowledge and skills required by the curriculum.

From Black Box to Hands-On Learning

The B4 Spark is a hands-on computing kit designed to let students see and build the inner workings of a computer. Instead of abstract diagrams or textbook descriptions, students plug in wires, connect modules, and watch data flow through the system.

Through a carefully structured set of 16 missions, students move step by step from simple beginnings — representing numbers in binary — to constructing a simple, yet functional, programmable Calculator. Along the way, they learn about:

Binary numbers and data representation
How a computer adds, subtracts, stores, and retrieves data
How hardware and software work together to process instructions and thereby form a digital system.

A Journey in Three Parts

The missions are grouped into three phases, making the learning journey clear and achievable:

Part 1 (Missions 1–7): Students explore the fundamental building blocks and build their first programmable calculator.
Part 2 (Missions 8–11): Students automate operations and write their first programs in table form and extend their system.
Part 3 (Missions 12–16): With the Master Programmer extension, students connect the B4 Spark to their laptops: advanced program design, timing and synchronisation, and even cyber security experiments.

With the B4 Spark, students begin their journey the way the computer pioneers did — plugging wires and pushing buttons to make the system work. This historic approach is intentional: it grounds students in the fundamentals before showing them how a computer gradually automates each step. The progression from manual wiring to full automation brings together the history of computing and the skills students need in Digital Technologies.

Curriculum-Aligned, Classroom-Ready

Knowledge and Understanding
- Digital Systems: Students wire up modules and see how these internal components connect to form a working system.
- Data Representation: By entering values directly in binary and watching them light up LEDs or move through memory, students gain an intuitive grasp of how computers store and process information.
Processes & Production Skills
- Data: Students acquire data by entering numbers in binary through switches, manage it by storing and updating values in RAM, and analyse it by comparing expected results with the actual outputs shown on LEDs.
- Investigating and Defining: Each mission begins with a challenge — e.g. “How can we add more than two numbers?” — which students explore by breaking down the problem. This leads to simple algorithms.
- Generating and Designing: Students design program tables that describe, step by step, what the computer should do.
- Producing and Implementing: They wire up the B4 Spark and run their own programs, seeing results in real time.
- Evaluating: Students test outputs against expectations and refine their solutions.
- Collaborating and Managing: Missions are designed for pairs or small groups, encouraging teamwork in building, debugging, and explaining their systems.
- Privacy & Security: Advanced missions show how data in RAM can be inspected, altered, or misused — a practical entry point into cyber security.

The B4 Spark comes with lesson plans, giving teachers the scaffolding they need to deliver rich, hands-on experiences without requiring specialist background knowledge. Each mission is carefully designed with cognitive load theory in mind — introducing one new concept at a time, building on prior knowledge, and avoiding unnecessary distractions. The B4 Spark also balances explicit teaching with guided exploration: students learn step by step how each component works, then apply their understanding through open-ended challenges that encourage discovery and problem-solving.

Flexible Options for Schools

The B4 Spark is available in two versions:

B4 Spark Core – everything needed to get underway for Missions 1-11, taking students from wires to a programmable calculator.
B4 Spark Master Programmer – an optional extension for Missions 12–16, where students connect the B4 Spark to their laptops, design a programming language and hack the B4 Spark in a sandboxed Cybersecurity space.

Schools can start with the Core and later add the Master Programmer, or dive straight into the full journey.

Why you will love It

The B4 Spark makes the invisible visible. Students aren’t just coding; they’re building the machine that runs the code. This tangible experience demystifies computing, sparks curiosity, and helps students see the logic behind every program they’ll write in the future.

👉 Interested in bringing the B4 Spark into your classroom?

Explore the B4 Spark