class update

Great class and the next one is on the calendar now

in

Had a slow time, but it was good getting the radios working for almost everyone.  I'll work on having a better testing program for January's class.

We will take a break during December for the holidays and then pick up on January 21st with working on setting up the Raspberry PI weather station console, designing the case to hold the weather station, and get started on the anemometer, weather vane and tipping rain gauge.

I'll have an updated parts list for the new parts we'll start on in January, and I'll have extra parts that people can buy at the class.

Thanks again for everyone who came to the class!

That was fast :)

in

Ok, I've confirmed that we'll be having the class here at my work Inmar on Saturday the 12th of November.  Thanks again to David Mounts for allowing us to hold the class here.

The address is 635 Vine St, Winston Salem, NC.

Map on Bing

I've also created a list on Amazon with the parts we need for the class, it'll be easier to update than the spreadsheet.  I've posted the link on the links page. Of course feel free to get the parts from other vendors like Banggood, Sparkfun, Adafruit, it's totally up to you where you get the parts.  If you're not sure if the part is the same one go ahead and email me a link and I can double check it for you before you order it.

Thanks!

Great class on Saturday

in

Had a great time on Saturday, and I hope everyone else did as well.  We went through and made sure everyone understood the new code and got all the way up to the point of working with the RF radios.

During the next class what we will do is go ahead and connect the radios up to the Arduino's, and test them and how they communicate with another Arduino.  I'll have a master Arduino with a display that will poll the weather station for weather data and display it (which was the original design).  Anyone who wants to build this part is welcome to, it's going to consist of an Arduino with the NRF module, the Nokia 5110 display and a couple of push buttons.  I have a LOT of push buttons if anyone needs them, and I think I'm going to work on mounting a couple of sets on breadboards so they can be plugged into the Arduino easily.

Once we have everyone's Arduino communicating properly, then we'll switch over and get the Raspberry PI's setup and configured.  If you have an extra monitor please bring it, otherwise you definitely should bring at least the Raspberry PI, a keyboard, a mouse, whatever SD card is needed for the version of Raspberry PI you have, and a power supply.  We did find some nifty small 7" LCD screens on Amazon for about $30 and that is a very convenient option especially for the class.  If not I'll have at least one monitor possibly two that we can use to get everyone's Raspberry PI setup on the network and we can use them through VNC on your laptop.

We will then go through the basics of the Raspberry PI and how to connect things to them, we'll probably hook up a light and some switches and program those.  Then we'll go ahead and hook up the radios to the Raspberry PI and try and get them talking to the weather stations.

I'm going to be working on the software for the Raspberry PI this month, and also on building an anemometer and a weather vane, which should be very easy to hook up.

Right now I'm planning to have the next class on the 12th, and I'll post again once I've confirmed that I can get the conference room here at Inmar.

Thanks!

Classes starting again

in

I'm going to be starting the classes again.   Right now we are going to continue with the weather station project, but we will be making some changes to the code.  I just wasn't really happy how it was developing so we'll refactor the code.

Not to mention it's been so long since we've met, it'll be good to start clean and have everyone at the same spot.  I'll be updating the code between now and when the class starts, and right now I'm shooting for the first Saturday in August.  As soon as I get confirmation of the room reservation I'll make an announcement here.

I'm also going to review the parts list for those who are joining us, so you'll have time to order the parts and be ready.

At a high level overview we are still planning to make a weather station that uses an Arduino uno for the sensors in a waterproof box, and it will transmit the information wirelessly to either another Arduino Uno or to a Raspberry PI.  We will do both versions, and at first we'll be using an Arduino to test the wireless communication, then for those that are happy with that they can build that.  But then we'll be moving on to a Raspberry  PI station that will allow you to display the weather information on a webpage.

Thanks for everyones patience as we get going again with the classes.  If anyone has any questions or suggestions please email me at nc4rg@yandex.com.

Thanks