Any good SkyNet starts with a robot. Well, we are in luck…User “badcat89″ posted in our forum about a Web-enabled, Wireless Robot that is controlled via a web interface. We can imagine a swarm of robots controlled by data received from the web.
Web Powered Robot
The robot uses a pair of serial bluetooth adapters to form a wireless link with the ioBridge IO-204. The serial levels of the IO-204 are TTL and a circuit using the MAX-232 was required to allow the serial interface work properly. On the robot is a set of serial servo drivers that control the steering and speed.
IO-204 and Serial Bluetooth Adpater
The interface is standard web page using an embedded ioBridge.com serial widget to make the connection to the IO-204 base station module. You can control the direction and throttle by clicking on the itnerface and using the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard. The interface generates serial strings that the serial servo drivers react to when received. You can see the strings and the serial widget in the debug part of the web interface.
Web-based Robot Controls
Here is a YouTube video of the web powered robot in action -- looks like a lot of fun to drive. One step closer…
Eric Edwards of EJESolar.com created a system that takes solar energy and heats water for his home. He uses Sun Strip Solar panels to heat the water. With a single solar panel Eric is able to heat a 60 gallon tank to temperatures beyond 160°F. He uses the ioBridge IO-204 to data log and actively monitors the water heating system by getting alerts and updates on his mobile phone.
Water Tank and ioBridge IO-204
ioBridge IO-204 with Temperature Sensors
Eric monitors and data logs the temperatures of the the hot water storage tank, the collectors, and the outside temperature in real-time using the ioBridge IO-204 and temperature sensors. This data allows Eric to calculate BTUs collected per day and translate into a dollar figure to track savings. He has surrounded himself with the data to make sure there is no system damage, freezing, etc., by creating a web site to view the data, setting ioBridge message alerts, and using a Google Gadget to display the temperatures collected by the IO-204.
Visit EJESolar.com to see a live view of the data collected by the solar hot water system as well as some more details behind this solar hot water heating system. Ingenious!
Screen Shot of Solar Array and Collected Data (EJESolar.com)
Have you ever wanted to keep track of your fussy chickens? Watch them, listen to them, monitor their temperature? This project is beyond home automation, it’s Coop Automation.
ioBridge user known as “Automatr” posted in the ioBridge Forum about his project to automate his chicken coop so he could watch, listen, and monitor the chicken’s environment 24/7 from anywhere in the world via the web.
Coop Automation - Live Video and Audio
This is the first chicken cam for sure. The project is very well done. Complete with a day/night infrared web cam, microphone, automatic door, light sensor, temperature sensor, and the ioBridge IO-204 connecting the project to the Internet for remote monitoring. Automatr can track temperature, light levels, listen in, and watch his chickens on his dedicated website, FussyChickens.com. He also gets messages posted to him when his automatic coop door opens and closes.
If you want to tune in and watch/listen to the chicken coop, head over to FussyChickens.com where there is a live audio and video stream from uStream.
Thanks for sharing your coop with us. These chickens are not getting away with anything now.
Christmas lights are one way to celebrate the holidays. If you want to take the tradition further, why not web-enable your your xmas lights and let the world watch, control, and interact via the Internet. A couple of ioBridge users did just that -- they took their holiday lights to Griswold levels.
Nathan Kennedy of Pacific Lights and Kennedy Technology has created an interactive display of reindeer and Christmas Star stakes covered in Christmas lights. You can watch his display all the way from New Zealand and switch them on or off on his website. He uses the ioBridge IO-204 connected to an arduino to control the lights on his website. It’s lots of fun controlling someone else’s holiday display.
Christmas Lights Controlled via a Web Page
Noel Portugal of Oracle has created an interactive holiday lights display using a mix of technologies. The result is Christmas lights synchronized to songs that are selectable on a web page, www.xmas-box.com. Inside the box are solid-state relays to control the lights, an Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit, and of course, the ioBridge IO-204 module to add some interactivity to his website. Noel details the procedure to create your very own Christmas Light Controller Box on Instructables.com and on his blog. On a related note, Noel also won third-place for his Dropping Spider ioBridge project featured on Instructables this Halloween! His neighbors must love him!
We found out what happens when you place two lovable toys against each other. They attack!
Hack Pittsburgh member Andy Leer created an interactive toy fight featuring Domo and Munny squaring off. You get to control one of the characters and watch the battle via a webcam live. Move over “Internet of Things” - make way for the “Internet of Vengeful Toys”.
Munny vs. Domo
The Munny and Domokun are attached to servos. The servos are connected to the ioBridge servo controller and IO-204. You control the toys with servo slider widgets. Andy’s blog mentions that the next version will have iPhone support. Visit his blog to play and sweep the leg at the Domo Dojo.
A number of ioBridge users created some amazing ioBridge-based projects for this Halloween. We were impressed with the diversity and how they interacted with the IO-204. From using some new offline features of ioBridge to using social networks to poke fun at their Halloween prey.
We have a steam powered steampunk pumpkin that blows smoke out if it’s ears. We have a spider dropping on it’s victim and snapping a photo and posting to Twitter via TwitPic. We also have a motion sensing, talking skull that scares co-workers in the owner’s cubicle. Check them out!
Over at PaperMashup.com, Ashley Ford has created a predictive weather system by tying the API of BBC Weather and real-time temperature data collected by a temperature sensor on the IO-204. Ashley is a developer at MySpace.com and has created a very clever project that uses ioBridge.com as a web service. The system serves as a way for him to forecast the weather in the UK as the season starts to turn colder. The predictive element comes from getting the forecast from the BBC Weather API and mashing it up with the ioBridge Data Feed API.
Office Weather System
You can demo the system and check out the weather forecast, by visiting Ashley’s blog. While you are there check some other of his projects.
Julia Tsao created an interactive project for her thesis that turned out to be a social experiment involving her family scattered around the world. Her family spans the globe from California to China and she created a way for her mom, her dad, and herself to interact and ultimately be connected to each other. Julia’s “The Strangers Project” is a lamp with 3 light bulbs. One lamp is controlled by Julia. The other two bulbs are controlled by her mom and dad.
Lamps
Using a few ioBridge IO-204’s, light sensors, relays, and wires, the lamps are able to sense when they are turned on and are able to turn on other light bulbs. Each participant received a controller box that houses the electronics and are interconnected using ioBridge.com web services.
ioBridge Controller Box
When Julia comes home from a late night of “studying” and turns on her light, her light comes on, and her bulb in her mom’s and dad’s lamp comes on as well. The same goes for her mom and dad – they all know when each other turns on a light.
Light On
Julia found her mom using it to signal her before she called Julia. They all learned a little about each others daily habits while having a glowing reminder of each others presence.
We were impressed by this novel use of the ioBridge system. Since our modules are connected thru our platform, the modules can interact with each other – Julia was the first one to create a project based on this functionality.
Our hope is that “The Strangers Project” made Julia’s family a little closer and discovered a few unexpected results of her “brilliant” project. For more information about Julia’s fascinating projects visit, juliatsao.com.
From the “My Electronics Notepad” blog, Noel Portugal created a tracking webcam using passive infrared (PIR) sensors, a webcam mounted on a servo, and the IO-204 monitor and control module.
PIR Sensors, Webcam, and ioBridge IO-204 Module
Noel was able to pull this off with using the ioBridge Actions. An action is logic created through the ioBridge interface that allows automated events to occur. For example, an action can cause a servo to move to preset position, send an email, update your Facebook status, etc. In Noel’s case, he use the output of the PIR sensor to cause the servo to move to a set position. The output of the PIR is digital – “high” means motion detected and “low” means no motion.
Using two PIRs covering two regions, he was able to detect motion in two regions. If motion is sensed in one area, the webcam points in that direction and if motion is detected in the other area, the servo moves the camera to cover the other region. Very clever.
The PIR sensor has been the subject of a recent Adafruit tutorial – it’s available on the Adafruit store and even your local Radio Shack (of all places). For more information about this ioBridge project and other projects Noel dreams up, visit his blog.
Thomas W. Lewis produced two excellent projects to remotely control his HVAC system and monitor his home power usage.
He wanted to turn off his HVAC system completely before leaving for an extended period of time, like going on vacation, and then turn it back on just before he gets to his house. Thomas found the controls wires on the thermostat and uses a relay to turn on or off the thermostat. He made it remote controllable with the ioBridge IO-204 module and control widgets placed on a mobile phone.
HVAC and Thermostat Control with the ioBridge IO-204
In additional to remotely being able to shut down his HVAC system, Thomas also monitors his temperature and whole house power using the analog inputs of the IO-204. He used AC clamps around the house power mains to get a power utilization relative to the current through the wires.
Power Monitoring for the Whole House
More details and photos are available on Thomas’ Smart Grid section of his blog.
