IoT Weather Display

The IoT Weather Display is a customizable weather forecast device that flashes different colors, each representing a specific weather condition in any location (latitude and longitude) in the world.

Engineer

Jimmy W

Area of Interest

Computer Science / Esports

School

Galileo High School

Grade

Incoming Senior

Final Milestone

About my Final Milestone

My final milestone is to flash the neopixel ring in different colors based on the weather conditions at any place in the world. I did this by creating an API to interface the weather service DarkSky with my Particle Photon.

About The Final Milestone

My final milestone is to light up the neopixel ring in different colors based on the weather conditions at any place in the world. The weather service that works well with Particle Photon is called Darksky, and I set up an API (Application programming interface) with the Particle website. Darksky can communicate with the particle photon by sending weather data when I input a latitude and longitude location. When weather data from Darksky is sent to the Particle, my program flashes the neopixel ring in any color based on the weather condition. For example, when Darksky reads “clear-day,” it will flash the color cyan.

First Milestone

About The First MileStone

My fist milestone is creating a circuit that connects a breadboard, neopixel ring, and particle photon microcontroller together in order to manually light up the neopixel ring in different colors by pushing a button that is inputted in the breadboard.

How It Works

I set up the particle photon online, then connected the particle photon, buttons, and neopixel ring electronically by wiring it according to the schematic, which created a circuit on the breadboard. After finishing the wiring, I programmed the Particle’s WEB IDE to flash different colors on the neopixel ring when pushing the button on the breadboard. After running the program code on the WEB IDE, the neopixel ring flashed Blue, White, Peach, and Yellow (each represent different weather conditions) after pressing the button.

Starter Project

About This Project

My Starter Project is the Minty Boost. The Minty Boost is a portable charger that can charge anything with a USB. This project is soldering intensive, and I recommend being careful of where to solder in the different parts to the circuit.

Steps

First step: Solder in the resistors, capacitors, inductor, boost converter, USB (universal serial bus), and the battery holder in the correct place on the circuit.
Second step: Plug in 2AA batteries to the battery holder, and use a voltmeter to check if the circuit generates around 5V (if it is less than 5V, then it would not charge.
Third step: Get a empty gum tin, and cut out a piece of tin to fit in the USB, then use double sided tape to tape the circuit and the batter holder inside the tin.
Last step: Test out the Minty Boost by charging a device (Ipod, smartphone).

How It Works

The Minty Boost has 2 AA batteries that generate a total of 3 volts, which flows to the inductor, then the capacitor, passes into the resistors, and finally into the boost converter. The purpose of an inductor is to store energy in a magnetic field, which will increase the voltage from 3 volts to 5. This is then passed to the capacitor, which stores energy in the form of an electric field and acts as a filter for the flow of energy. The resistors limit the flow of electrical current in an electronic circuit. This circuit is called a boost converter and is capable of boosting the voltage up to 5 volts.

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