Entrant 68 : W-esp
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 11:01 pmUser
geert
Description
The W-esp is a toolkit that enables the first and second year students of secondary education to connect sensors and actuators to the internet and create interactive systems that use the internet of things. This could be for example a locker that is controlled by your mobile phone, a system that prevent your grandmother from sleepwalking, automatically feeds the chickens… the sky is the limit.
The process of building such a system consists of three steps. First the w-esp needs to know which sensors and actuators are connected to the board, by using a drag and drop system [see step 1] the user can drop the in- and output icons on the different ports. After doing that the hardware needs to be physically connected to the w-esp [step 2]. Now the students can open a flow chart programming system based on Node-red(IBM) [step 3] in which they can flows consisting of input blocks, output blocks and processing blocks.
In this way the children can learn about programming concepts, without the need to learn difficult syntaxis and languages, they also can use the internet (social media, mobile phone) as in or output and in this way create awesome projects.
This project shows students in high-school the power of the internet of thing, while they are able to actively learn and design with it. The ESP8266 is a great chip for this purpose, because it is cheap and can function as the gateway from the internet to the world of hardware.
I made the LUA code for the ESP, made the interface (google chrome app) to connect hardware to the w-esp and used and changed the node-red code to make it easier. I also made the hardware, casing electronics to make it consistent and easier to understand. All the code, hardware, schematics and manuals are open source and shared on github.
Parts
Part Cost in EU
ESP chip 8,00
PCB cost 1,00
Connectors 0,80
Screw terminals 1,00
Casing 5,00
servo 3.50
led 0,50
pushbutton 0,50
slider 0,50
Packaging 2,00
USB cable 1,00
Other/unexpected 2,00
Links
Homepage
Github
Video
Images
geert
Description
The W-esp is a toolkit that enables the first and second year students of secondary education to connect sensors and actuators to the internet and create interactive systems that use the internet of things. This could be for example a locker that is controlled by your mobile phone, a system that prevent your grandmother from sleepwalking, automatically feeds the chickens… the sky is the limit.
The process of building such a system consists of three steps. First the w-esp needs to know which sensors and actuators are connected to the board, by using a drag and drop system [see step 1] the user can drop the in- and output icons on the different ports. After doing that the hardware needs to be physically connected to the w-esp [step 2]. Now the students can open a flow chart programming system based on Node-red(IBM) [step 3] in which they can flows consisting of input blocks, output blocks and processing blocks.
In this way the children can learn about programming concepts, without the need to learn difficult syntaxis and languages, they also can use the internet (social media, mobile phone) as in or output and in this way create awesome projects.
This project shows students in high-school the power of the internet of thing, while they are able to actively learn and design with it. The ESP8266 is a great chip for this purpose, because it is cheap and can function as the gateway from the internet to the world of hardware.
I made the LUA code for the ESP, made the interface (google chrome app) to connect hardware to the w-esp and used and changed the node-red code to make it easier. I also made the hardware, casing electronics to make it consistent and easier to understand. All the code, hardware, schematics and manuals are open source and shared on github.
Parts
Part Cost in EU
ESP chip 8,00
PCB cost 1,00
Connectors 0,80
Screw terminals 1,00
Casing 5,00
servo 3.50
led 0,50
pushbutton 0,50
slider 0,50
Packaging 2,00
USB cable 1,00
Other/unexpected 2,00
Links
Homepage
Github
Video
Images
