Imagine having to describe every scene in a film, every note of your favourite song, every street around your house, … as a code of ones and zeros. Impossible? Not really. Because that is exactly what your computer does. It uses ones and zeros, so only two symbols, to remember everything. We call this the binary code.
Look at the plate you are holding your hand over. The circles you see are light sensors. These measure whether light hits them and send signals to the microcontrollers (very simple, little “computers” you see at the bottom of the cabinet).
- On every sensor around your hand, there is light. For the microcontrollers, that is 0.
- On every sensor underneath your hand, there is no light. For the microcontrollers, that is 1.
The microcontrollers are connected to a computer, which ensures that you see those zeros and ones on the screen.
To get more fun images, we also gave the computer other commands:
- 0 = white and 1 = black
- 0 = water and 1 = duckling
