The development of cheap single-board programmable systems in the recent period, has significantly facilitated the prototyping of electronic circuits. One of the first open electronic platforms was the Arduino. This hardware platform is compatible with open programming systems. The Arduino platform was based on a simple design and was created mainly for educational applications. The use of popular interfaces for communication with peripheral devices in the construction of the device meant that many projects in the field of control, automation and the Internet of Things were created on the basis of Arduino.  The Arduino platform was established in 2003 and is successfully used in modern projects. Another popular device for prototyping of control systems is Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a mini-computer working under the control of the Raspbian OS. This operating system is based on Debian, a popular Linux distribution. In addition to the standard interfaces known from traditional PCs, this computer has a 40 pin GPIO connector, which allows designers to use devices connected with I2C, SPI or 1-Wire bus. Thanks to this device, it is possible to integrate the designed system with many peripheral sensors and automatic control modules. There are many other platforms on the market that have interfaces to integrate with popular sensors and controls, and allow programmers to create code in high-level programming languages. Due to their low cost, these devices can be a popular alternative to the most well-known and more expensive solutions. The most popular platforms of this type are:

• Orange Pi – Orange Pi is an open SoC computer. It has preinstalled operating system in Flash memory. This microcomputer has Allwinner H3 processor, it can run operating systems Android 4.4, Ubuntu, Raspbian. There is a version of this device equipped with a SIM card slot that allows data transmission in mobile networks.
• NodeMCU – A device with a WiFi module, based on the ESP8266 chip. It has 10 GPIO ports (serving PWM, I2C and 1-wire). The platform has been equipped with 4 MB of Flash memory. The system has a built-in single-channel 10-bit analogue ADC converter and USB-UART converter. The NodeMCU software is installed in the device’s memory, which allows you to create programs in the Lua script language. Developers can also use the popular C language.
• Onion Omega 2 – A single board platform for amateur use. One of the smallest IoT modules on the market that work with the Linux system. The device has a Mediatek MT7688 processor clocked at 580 MHz, has 64 MB of RAM and 16 MB of built-in Flash memory. The system has a built-in WiFi module and 15x GPIO, PWM, UART, I2C, and SPI interfaces. The module is controlled via a built-in web interface. The device manufacturer provides an account on its Cloud platform in the price of the device. This platform can be used for integration with other control systems and data sharing on the Internet.

These platforms are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Platforms NodeMCU, Onion Omega 2 and Orange Pi.

These platforms can be used not only to create prototype systems, but also to build commercial data acquisition and control systems. An example of this type of solutions can be an agro-hydro-meteorological station, which was built on the basis of open hardware platforms. These platforms were used to integrate the IoT system with a professional meteorological station of the Vantage Pro company, and allowed to extend the functionality by measuring insolation, measuring evaporation and evapotranspiration, detecting the thickness of the snow cover, and measuring the water level. The constructed system is also used to generate alerts about dangerous weather events. The implemented system was installed in Krakow. It is currently used to transmit data and generate information about dangerous meteorological conditions. This system is fully autonomous due to power requirements. The physical installation of the system is shown in Figure 2. Pictures of installed stations were made available by InfoMet Katowice.

Figure 2. Meteo station based on open hardware platforms.

The relatively low price of the presented platforms allows their use also in educational projects. These platforms can be used in educational centers and schools that do not have large budget resources for their activities. One of the educational projects is a controlled robot platform based on the ESP8266 system, and a dedicated Motor Shield module. Thanks to these devices, it is possible to build an educational robot system. This system enables students to familiarize themselves with the basic problems of control, network communication and programming of embedded systems. This educational robot was also used in educational workshops as part of the ODM project. Despite the fact that the people participating in the workshop did not have any preparation in the field of computer science, they launched the presented robot platform. Participating in the workshop, he was able to familiarize himself with the methods of robot control, data transmission problems in Internet networks and programming of control systems in high level programming languages. The use of the robot in educational workshops as part of the ODM project is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Educational Robot Platform.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg8MelZsI2A&feature=youtu.be

The presented examples present the applications of popular single board platforms in education and commercial activities. Applications of open hardware solutions will continue to grow thanks to IoT systems. The dynamic development of independent projects such as DWeb or Ethereum will allow to create innovative solutions in the field of data processing based on open hardware and software platforms.

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Photo by the waving cat

The post Podcast: Bruce Sterling on the Casa Jasmina project and the IoT appeared first on P2P Foundation.

You’d like to contribute to building the new world.  You offer ideas. But other people shout them down as impractical. They complain accommodating your perspective is too costly. When you express concerns over the “vibe” of the new world, they ridicule you.

That’s pretty much my experience being left-handed.

But I personally don’t feel alienated from my world. I make adjustments. And my world validates much of who I am.

But imagine that your world ignored much of who you are.  How would you, and others like you, contribute to the new paradigm?

Casa Jasmina arose for just this purpose.

Extracted from: http://casajasmina.arduino.cc/about/

“Casa Jasmina” is a two-year pilot project in the business space of domestic electronic networking, or, “the Internet of Things in the Home.” Our goal is to integrate traditional Italian skills in furniture and interior design with emergent skills in Italian open-source electronics.The project is a showplace inside the large industrial building already shared by Toolbox Co-Working, Fablab Torino and Officine Arduino.
Casa Jasmina showplace has three main functions:

• A real-world testbed for hacks, experiments and innovative IoT and digital fabrication projects.
• A curated space for public exposure of excellent artifacts and best practices.
• A guest-house for occasional visitors to Toolbox, Officine Arduino and
  Fablab Torino.

Although it resembles an apartment home, Casa Jasmina is actually a combination of lab, gallery space and B&B, so it needs dynamic management. Casa Jasmina is not merely a kitchen, library, bedroom, and bathroom. It’s a public interface for a larger Internet-of-Things process of building things, acquiring installing things, removing things, repairing and maintaining things, storing things, recording and linking to things, and, last but very importantly, getting rid of things.

Extracted from: http://http://casajasmina.arduino.cc/seven-ways-of-iowoment/

The “Internet of Things” is a platform cloud that is also a conceptual box.   That is its nature as “the IoT”: it is a digital platform for software, it is wireless, computational and data-centered, and it is also a paradigm.

This is why, as I explored a kind of third road between feminism and design, an “Internet of Women Things” occurred to me.  Could this “IoWT” become a generous place for conceptual projects, ideas and advice, for a sense of emotional beauty and purposeful living?  Concepts like these are not often the first impulses for a technology project, but they generally last the longest.

The IoWT is something I saw in the fog, as a “cloud” that is also on the ground.  The IoWT might even be an “underground” cloud in some way, of not just airy ideals but of suppressed female energies.

Do you feel this gender divide as I do? I don’t lack for help from the capable male “Jasmini” but I need women to come to live with me, to talk with me.   Thank you!

An Internet of Things cannot be merely by and for web technologists, for it embraces-and-extends not just “Things” but also us women, as well as children, or animals or plants, or robots…  Right now, my strong belief is that “the IoT” is dangerously outside of women’s world-views.  The IoT is so alienating, and so narrowly obsessed with today’s technical and economic needs, that it might well fail altogether.    It would be a shame if its profound potential was lost for a generation, in a heap of failed, too-ambitious toys, as happened to similar tech visions such as Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence.

Home automation is decades old and has failed many times, enough to fill a science-fiction museum with archaic streamlined pushbuttons.   But lack of effort is not comfort, idleness is not wealth, and too many mouse-clicks, like too many butlers, can rob life of its intimacy and dignity.  Networks and systems that connect in opaque ways, that camouflage digital decisions, can crash and burn in spectacular fashion; a thousand invisible computers can fail in tangled, thorny ways that a single one never will.  When each thing chaotically hooks to a hundred others, what becomes of accountability?  If we build human-free systems without an off-switch or an undo button, how will we stop when we err, how will we express regrets and make amends?  If we hide from our own needs and desires in tangles of software, how will we even know that we have prevailed?

Extracted from: http://casajasmina.arduino.cc/casa-jasmina-for-makers/

At Arduino we are proud of the swarm of projects developed every day by the community. We believe in the enabling power that Arduino and digital manufacturing tools give to Makers, people making objects and services to meet their own needs. Digital fabrication tools hosted in places like fablabs and makerspaces make technology more accessible and usable.With Casa Jasmina, we want to promote this practice in a house. Enabling people to define their domestic needs and use technology to satisfy them. We believe that Arduino and fabrication tools, with open-source approaches and user-centered design practices, can transform everyday life in the home. Inside Casa Jasmina we want to exhibit the best projects in this area of the IoT. Makers, designers, artists can join Casa Jasmina and help us shape the open source connected home and explore its potential.

Photo by brewbooks

Photo by @alaina

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