Introduction
When I started with IoT I was all confused about electronics stuffs, resistors, and circuits, then I got Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Kit plus. With this, we have to just plug the sensor modules instead of managing it through soldering or breadboard. So let us see how easily we can get started with the Internet of Things with Grove Starter Kit without worrying about electronic components and circuits.
The Grove Starter Kit is a complete development kit that consists of a collection of sensors, actuators, and shields. It is a hardware and software solution to help you explore the IoT space and create innovative projects. The Grove Starter Kit is a better choice because:
- It accelerates development and testing with IoT.
- The Grove shield and sensors have 4 pin connectors that allow us to plug in the sensor with ease rather than managing circuits and sensors using a breadboard.
- The Grove shield has been tested as compatible with Windows by the Windows IoT team.
- There is a huge variety of sensor modules available with Seed Studio.
If you are new to IoT, the Seed Studio Grove Starter Kit will help you to easily get started with development since you need not worry about circuits and other electronics stuff. With Grove shield and sensor modules, you can easily create anything without worrying about electronic components much. There is no need to manage sensors using soldering or a breadboard. This article will guide you about how to set up and get running with the Grove Starter Kit plus an Intel Galileo.
The booklet contains instructions about basic sketches with Grove Starter Kit Plus.
Required Components
Setting Up
Adding SketchBook to Arduino IDE
- Extract the downloaded Sketchbook Starter.
- Open Arduino IDE.
- Select “File" -> "Preferences”.
- View the “Sketchbook location” field.
- Click “Browse” and copy the Seed Studios Sketches folder you downloaded into the resulting folder and rename it something like “Sketchbook_Grove”.
- Restart your Arduino IDE.
Making Connections
Power up the Galileo, you will see the power LED light up. Galileo will start booting from the customized version of Linux. Wait a few seconds. Note: unlike the Galileo Gen 1 board, the Galileo Gen2 board uses a 12 V power supply. Use the specific power adapter that is provided with the Galileo Gen2 board.
Now we are ready to make the rest of the connections, we will connect Galileo to the computer via USB cable. Now we see the USB LED will light up.
Adding Grove Base Shield
In the Grove, kit pulls up the Pink Styrofoam underneath the LED screen to locate the Base Shield.
The Base Shield has a variety of 4-pin plugs for connecting various sensors to Intel Galileo.
Now attach the Base Shield to the Intel Galileo board and press down firmly. A green LED on the Base Shield will turn on when it is powered up.
Plugging in the Temperature Sensor Module
In the Grove Starter Kit Plus locate the Temperature Sensor Module, on its backside, it will have written “Temperature Sensor”. Using one of the wires provided in the kit, attach it to your Base Shield unit. Be sure to plug it into the port marked A0 since it is the default port in the sample code but you can change it as desired.
Running up your first sketch
Open Arduino IDE.
Go to “File" -> "Sketchbook" -> "Sketchbook_Grove->Grove_Temperature_Sensor” to load the basic temperature sketch.
Sketch
-
- const int pinTemp = A0;
-
-
-
-
- const int B = 3975;
-
- void setup()
- {
-
- Serial.begin(9600);
- }
-
- void loop()
- {
-
- int val = analogRead(pinTemp);
-
-
- float resistance = (float)(1023-val)*10000/val;
-
-
- float temperature = 1/(log(resistance/10000)/B+1/298.15)-273.15;
-
-
- Serial.println(temperature);
-
-
- delay(1000);
- }
Click the “Upload” button. You should see a “Transfer Complete” message if it is successfully deployed.
Viewing Sensor Results
To view the temperature reading of the deployed sketch, click the “Serial Monitor” button in the upper-right hand corner of the Arduino IDE.
The Serial Monitor is a separate pop-up window that acts as a separate terminal that communicates by receiving and sending Serial Data. See the icon on the far right of the image below. You can use the Serial Monitor to debug Arduino Software Sketches or to view data sent by a working Sketch.
You can see the output in the Serial Monitor. Now you are ready to do some more complex projects and dive into the world of IoT with many sensor modules provided by Seed Studio.