Controllers / Arduino Night is going to long term end up as an Internet Of Things (IoT) direction in the course.   The course is going to expand upon the basic Arduino type hardware controller into a more system approach to handle many devices and many interface of which one Arduino is not suited.

Check our calender.

7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Unallocated Space
512 Shaw Ct #105
Severn, MD 21144, USA

UPDATE 12/14/2016: Due to the holiday season and festivities that follow, we will be cancelling the remaining classes for the month of December and will be resuming them in January with a more advance list of topics. See you after the new year!
Demonstrate how both Arduino and Raspberry PI can control hardware and in addition explore how to make the Raspberry PI utilize the Arduino to control hardware.  The goal of course it to explore the full gammit of what the Raspberry PI used in conjunction with Arduino can do for IoT type development.  In addition, utilize screen scraping, twitter, and website / web services to control devices.

· Initial night will be to configure peoples Raspberry PI(s) and computers for programming both Arduino and Raspberry PI.

1. Install OS on PI
2. Basic configuration of PI (Network, Keyboard, Localization, TimeZone)
3. Basic software install of development tools such as git, python, C
4. Basic downloads of examples for various hardware sensors
5. Install Arduino SDK on both the host computer and the RPI
6. Basic Breadboard of LED to be done to illustrate several ways to manipulate the hardware
7. Basic demonstration of the SenseHat for Raspberry PI

The goal for week 1) is that everyone would walk away with knowledge to build a bearing and orientation display (Cockpit) Read Out Display utilizing Raspberry PI and Arduino.

At a minimum people need to have a Raspberry PI (Preferably a PI 3), Arduino, Breadboard, LEDs, Resistor assortment, wires, USB cable for Arduino, Keyboard (USB) , Mouse (USB) (Bluetooth works with PI 3), Serial Console Cable however strongly recommend a Cobbler(comes with Sensor Kit), SenseHat, Sensor Kit.

Would expect to utilize the following hardware over the course:

1. Micro SD Card
2. Raspberry PI (/ would also get a Raspberry PI zero) https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b/
3. Arduino UNO compatible board https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno
4. Ada Fruit SenseHat (orientation, compass, RTC, LED , buttons, etc) all in one connected device.)  https://www.adafruit.com/product/2738 (Kind of expensive so understand not everyone will get one.
5. Sun Founder Sensor Kit for RPI 2 / 3.  https://www.sunfounder.com/rpi2-sensorv2.html (There are knockoff versions of this kit that are cheaper and if you really shop around you can get it much cheaper.  For this course you need some sensors or it will be really boring for you but if couple people buy some sensors to share out etc.  — This kit does cost a bit more but in long run if you build a robot car or similar the connectors on the sensors and all the extras will make it much easier.  Each sensor has connectors , etc. that make wiring much cleaner in long run.
6. RPI Cobbler  https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pi-cobbler-kit/overview  ( I actually use the one from the SunFounder Kit as it has better pin placement with labels.)    You can wire direct to PI but you will find the cobbler board makes life better if you have multiple projects, etc.  If you get the sensor kit you get a good cobbler board
7. BreadBoard  Any breadboard and one comes with Sensor Kit
8. Wires
9. Sun Founder Sensor Kit comes with many coupled wires and couple loose ones. May need extra.
10. Console Serial Cable (Note: The sun founder kit comes with a cobbler, wires, breadboard, etc.

Different people are at different levels of experience and also have different goals.   The expected direction is to always have couple new hardware device controls each week and to have a couple new software tools each week.  If do not get a sensor kit the device programming each week would be limited to very few devices like LEDs, etc. which if couple people get the sensor kit we can do a lot more cools stuff.  Up to each person as I am sure you can pair up.    The sun founder kit has many pluses for what we want.  (It does cost money which some may not have but hopefully enough people can get a set of basic sensors.)

1. Sensors utilize connectors which limits about of wiring,
2. Many I2C devices which means can control many more devices
3. Quality is good so less frustration
4. Comes with very good booklet for beginners to see good diagrams
5. Comes with Cobbler for RPI.

Initially, am expecting to follow the SunFounder Sensor Guide and the Oreilly Raspberry PI Cookbook for examples so that people needing to catch up can understand and research more details than in class.    The goal of course is really to push the IoT concepts more than the sensors.  The sensor knowledge is just research and experimentation but good devices meet with better IoT examples later.  Wanted to follow all the hardware around a book so people needing extra help have something to consult / learn from.  The course goal is more about putting all the device knowledge into one IoT controller set of Raspberry PIs. Book examples from:  http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029595.do

I would expect a very quick overview of course is going to involve C, Python, Arduino SDK, Raspberry PI Arduino SDK, Processing, NodeRED, Tk, TCL, NodeJS, Perl, Java, Linux Admin, Networking, Windows IoT, Windows IoT Dashboard, Perl DB, MongoDB, Parse API, Twitter,  Beautiful Soup 4.

Expect to have a variety of sensor examples but some may choose just to light up LEDs.    (Examples will be from various Sensors in the basic 37 sensor kit.)

At end of course I would expect people would understand how to build a master control console controlling a variety of hardware.  Control console would be physical and or web accessible via IoT methodologies.

Hopefully some fun!