Internet of Things
Developed by Stazia Tronboll, Colin Keef, and Raul Pegan
Developed by Stazia Tronboll, Colin Keef, and Raul Pegan
Welcome to PiB's Introduction to IoT: AmbiLamp. We aim to introduce you to the full breadth of topics that go into an Internet of Things device, inviting you to delve deeper into the areas that interest you.
IoT is all about wirelessly hooking devices together, so that computing becomes ubiquitous. In an IoT world, everything will be a 'Smart Thing'. Smart refrigerators, coffee machines, umbrellas, signs - it'll all be talking to other smart devices, to interconnect the physical world the way the internet has connected the software world.
We believe that these Smart Things fall into a few categories, based on how they help the human user:
The AmbiLamp project is an informer and a controller. We'll be building a web app and two pieces of hardware which talk to it. The AmbiLamp - Ambient Lamp - is a set of sensors and an LED that store information about your environment in a database. The web app then reads from the database and displays the data in charts and tables. In the other direction, the user can control the light of the lamp from the web app. Finally, you'll be making an Alexa device that offers a hands-off way of informing the user by training skills that interact with the API offered by the web app. Check out the video below for a demonstration.
This project is broken down into six modules: 3 for the software and 3 for the hardware. The first three modules (Setting up MEN Stack, Building the Webpage, and Deploying the Website) goes through the steps of building the web application using Node.js, Express and MongoDB. The next three modules (Raspberry Pi Setup, Assembling the Hardware, and Hardware Integration) goes through the steps of setting up the Raspberry Pi, soldering the PCB, CADing the enclosure, and communicating with the web application. In addition, there is one more module (Recommended Content) that contains preliminary tutorials for those unfamiliar with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Node.js. While it's not necessary to go through the Recommended Content module, answering ALL of the questions posted there is required and is part of P1. At the end of each modules are checkpoints. Unless all of the checkpoints have been met, the module isn't completed.