Today I completed the second milestone of my climate dashboard. What I have accomplished today is a great step towards the completion of my project. I have learned how to control the dc motor using the photo resistor that I connected to my photon. I faced many challenges when attempting to reach this goal such as bricking a photon and spending countless hours researching ways to achieve this. I found numerous solutions on how I can fix my photon, however, due to poor documentation, I was unable to understand how I can use the solution such as the one on this link and on this link. In addition, I tried flashing new firmware into my photon, however, it ended up leaving the photon in safe mode and ultimately making it useless. I found it was taking a lot of the time I needed for my project so we ordered a new unit allowing me to continue with my main project. After I received the new unit, I found that the only reason I couldn’t get accurate readings from the photo resistor was that I needed a resistor to limit the voltage going to the photo resistor according to this link. Once I found that was the issue, I got my motor up and running. During this step, I learned a whole lot about my project and some of the components in it. I learned how to read pin values from a photon and how to use pins as output values which I’ve been doing the whole time without realizing it. I also learned how to use an h-bridge to control the direction a motor can turn and how digital and analog pins can determine the behavior of the motor (with code). The code I wrote, my schematic, and some commands I used in the command prompt can be found below.

Today, I completed the first milestone for my climate control dashboard. During this step, I connected the hardware together and programmed the photon so that it can collect data.The two components I worked with were the photon microcontroller and the SparkFun Weather Shield. The photon microcontroller is a small computer chip that collects data from the sensors on the weather shield and reports it to the particle cloud. The code I used, allowed the Photon to collect readings from the Weather Shield sensors and to format it so that it could be read in the cloud. This was done by programming a web hook into the Photon so that the data it sends to the particle cloud is also sent to Losant. Because the Photon works by using wifi, I faced a challenge when connected the chip to wifi. It did not have a screen or anything to show if it was connected or connecting. Once I connected the chip to wifi, it worked great and reported all the data to Losant. The next steps to my project include creating a solar panel power supply as this is a weather station after all.

Bill Of Materials: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZPr_gupiNAXtUB6mC1950pz_mWH62bccJ-PvNoYAVqE/edit?usp=sharing

Code: https://github.com/neelbagora/photoncode

Schematic: http://imgur.com/a/jNM2Z

My starter project is the MintyBoost phone charger

The MintyBoost is a phone charger that runs on 2 AA batteries. It works by converting battery power into sufficient energy to charge a cellular device. Building this project was a great experience with some challenges along the way. I learned so much as I was building this project, for example, I learned how to use a multimeter and how to use the continuity mode to test circuit connections. I also learned how to number an IC, how to read a schematic, and so much more. Towards the end when I finished my project, I found that it would not work. After some time spent troubleshooting, I found that one of the connections was not secure, interrupting the electrical current in the board. Upon fixing that, my MintyBoost became functional. By building this device, I learned a lot about circuitry, how to troubleshoot a circuit board, and how the components used in the project work. It was truly a great experience. Below, there is a YouTube video demonstrating the project and how it works.