What does experimental ontology do with devices? Implicitly posed in many places. It's a comfortable hotel, warm and well-lit, in the Lake District, north-west England, February 2016. The fields, hedges and woodland outside are snow-covered, sloping down towards the slate-grey waters of the lake. The meeting room is muted. Soft carpets, plush drapes, ergonomic seats and a continuous flow of fresh baked goods and locally sourced hot drinks cushion the participants. In the meeting room, computer scientists, a scattering of health and environmental scientists, statisticians, health and educational researchers chat around the table, waiting for the opening talk.

We wait to hear about the micro:bit, a BBC-sponsored device whose purpose in life is to usher youth and geeks in the UK and elsewhere into the world of embedded devices, and the more networky version known as the Internet of Things (IoT). The main speaker, a designer from the BBC, is passionate about the history of microcomputers and the BBC, narrating the story of a microcomputer, the BBC Micro, that transformed UK popular culture in the 1980s because of the amateur tinkering and hacking it facilitated. The micro:bit, a £10 piece of hardware, aims to re-capture and update some of the glowing meaningfulness of those days. The update for the internet-enabled post-platform economy is neatly symbolized by ‘:’. The BBC and the Micro:bit Foundation is just about to deliver hundreds of thousands of the devices to UK schools. Every 11-year-old will have one.