Arduino: Make An Iot Environment Monitor

A perfect start for the new maker: learn by creating a gadget that posts your environment data to a Web logging service.

What you’ll learn
Make simple circuits based on the Arduino board
Acquire data from sensors and display them on an LCD screen
Upload sensor data to a free cloud logging service and visualise it in a dashboard
Understand the basics of programming for microcontrollers
Requirements
The basics of electricity, like voltage, current, resistance.
Description
This course is designed for beginner makers. I will help you get started with the basics of creating circuits with the Arduino prototyping board, and by the end of this course you will have an Internet-connected home environment monitoring gadget, build with your own hands!
The only prerequisite is a basic understanding of concepts like voltage, current and resistance, and ability to download and install software on your computer. A very basic understanding of programming is a bonus, but not absolutely necessary.
Along the way, you will learn about programming, sensors, and communications.
The course is split in three parts:
Part 1 is an introduction, which will gently help you create your first circuit and open your appetite for more.
Part 2 contains a primer on making with the Arduino, focusing on the Integrated Development Environment and the sketching language.
Part 3 is about making JING. JING (not an acronym!) is the environment monitoring system that you will put together piece by piece, and line by line.
If learning by making sounds like the way to go, then this course is for you!
Materials:
To fully take advantage of this course, you will need (all of these are easily sourced from Ebay):
1) An Arduino (I suggest a genuine Arduino Uno)
2) A photoresistor
3) A DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor
4) A BMP085 barometric sensor breakout
5) A 16×2 LCD screen based on the Hitachi HD44780 driver (or compatible, these are very common)
6) A potentiometer
7) Assorted resistors
8) A small breadboard
9) Lot’s of breadboard wires.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 2 Please read this before continuing!

Lecture 3 Components needed for this project

Lecture 4 Where can you find the sketch source code?

Lecture 5 Hello World! Diodes, LEDs, and your 1st circuit

Lecture 6 Hello World! Your 1st sketch

Lecture 7 Use Pulse Width Modules, make the LED fade

Section 2: Arduino development basics

Lecture 8 Compilers, the IDE instructions and functions

Lecture 9 Operators

Lecture 10 Control structures

Lecture 11 Frequently used functions

Lecture 12 Custom functions

Lecture 13 Reading and writing digital and analog values

Lecture 14 Digital and analog read/write demonstration

Section 3: Constructing JING

Lecture 15 Measuring light with Lux and the Axel-Benz formula

Lecture 16 Measuring light with a photoresistor demonstration

Lecture 17 Measuring temperature and humidity

Lecture 18 Measuring barometric pressure

Lecture 19 Adding an LCD screen, setup the circuit

Lecture 20 Adding an LCD screen, adding a library and sketch walkthrough

Lecture 21 Create an echo server with the Ethernet Shield

Lecture 22 Transmit sensor data with the Ethernet Shield

Lecture 23 Emoncms, what is it, walkthrough

Lecture 24 Upload data from a single sensor to Emoncms

Lecture 25 Setting up logging and visualising data on Emoncms

Lecture 26 Completing the hardware assembly

Lecture 27 The Jing complete sketch walkthrough

Lecture 28 Completing the Jing dashboard

Section 4: Video Responses

Lecture 29 How to configure a widget (and why is a widget blank?)

Section 5: Conclusion and Bonus Lecture

Lecture 30 Wrap-it up, what did we learn, and improvements

Lecture 31 Bonus Lecture

Makers who have an existing intermediate or better understanding of electronics,Beginner Arduino makers