Synopses & Reviews
Arduino Projects to Save the World shows you that it takes little more than a few tools, a few wires and sensors, an Arduino board, and a bit of gumption to build devices that lower our energy bills, help you grow our own food, monitor pollution in the air and in the ground, even warn you about earth tremors--and, incidentally, about unwanted intruders.
To make environmentally sound decisions for our homes, we need data which are collected from sensors. Emery Premeaux introduces the types of sensors needed to collect environmental data, from temperature and gas sensors to soil moisture and motion sensors. You might ask questions regarding energy sources, from building your own power strip to running your Arduino board on solar panels, which Premeaux answers before you can actually proceed to build systems that help, for example, to lower your energy bills. If you have programming skills they are welcome too, and Emery shows you how they can be put to good use by publishing our data on the net and to use other people's data to make environmentally sound decisions.
The core of the book deals with the Arduino Projects to Save the World. Premeaux starts off with an air pollution and dust monitor sophisticated enough to allow for most standard urban pollution scenarios. He then shows you how to put together our own weather station, including a barometric pressure sensor to warn you from more extreme weather. This is relevant in many parts of the world where public weather data provision is under cost pressure and localized extreme weather is often being reported too late.
In colder regions and during winter, heat loss through windows and badly insulated walls is a problem that's rarely addressed by commercial device vendors. Premeaux shows you how to account for heat loss using a heat loss temperature sensor array. And how about building your own seismic monitor? Many of the world's largest cities are located in earthquake-prone zones. Of course, you should be able to check the quality of the water you are consuming, hence Emery shows you how to check water contamination.
An expandable home emergency warning system that warns you about pollution in the air or fire hazards pulls together some of the threads in this book. You will also learn how to plan and build a sophisticated energy consumption monitor. Finally, there is the issue of using your balcony and window real estate to grow food--a field known as window farming. Arduino-based soil moisture, humidity and temperature sensors are helpful for those and for long-term data collection on your own private balcony farm.
What you'll learn Help the environment by using Arduino Install and use environmental sensors Use low-energy or solar energy sources for your Arduino board to avoid loading conventional energy grids Build an Arduino-based weather station and a seismic monitor to protect your home Measure energy flows inside your home using temperature sensor arrays and humidity sensors Pull together your environmental data in an energy consumption monitor Use an Arduino board to monitor your window farm
Who this book is for
Programmers excited by Arduino Arduino users looking for green projects Embedded systems engineers interested in Arduino
Synopsis
- Saving the World: One Sensor at a Time
- Spider Temps: A Temperature Measurement Tool with Six Legs
- Jungle Power: Keeping an Arduino Alive on Solar, Batteries, and Super Capacitors
- Tele-sensation: Wireless Communication for Long-Distance Measurement
- Contributing to the Hive Mind: Submitting Your Data to Pachube
- The Mass Effect: Measuring Earthquakes with This Seismometer
- Staying Current: Keeping track of your power usage
Synopsis
Arduino Projects to Save the World shows that it takes little more than a few tools, a few wires and sensors, an Arduino board, and a bit of gumption to build devices that lower energy bills, help you grow our own food, monitor pollution in the air and in the ground, even warn you about earth tremors. Arduino Projects to Save the World introduces the types of sensors needed to collect environmental data?from temperature sensors to motion sensors. You'll see projects that deal with energy sources?from building your own power strip to running your Arduino board on solar panels so you can actually proceed to build systems that help, for example, to lower your energy bills. Once you have some data, it's time to put it to good use by publishing it online as you collect it; this book shows you how. The core of this book deals with the Arduino projects themselves: Account for heat loss using a heat loss temperature sensor array that sends probes into every corner of your house for maximum measurement. Monitor local seismic activity with your own seismic monitor. Keep your Arduino devices alive in the field with a solar powered device that uses a smart, power-saving design. Monitor your data and devices with a wireless radio device; place your sensors where you like without worrying about wires. Keep an eye on your power consumption with a sophisticated power monitor that records its data wherever you like.
Arduino Projects to Save the World teaches the aspiring green systems expert to build environmentally-sound, home-based Arduino devices. Saving the world, one Arduino at a time. Please note: the print version of this title is black & white; the eBook is full color. What you?ll learn Help the environment by using Arduino Install and use environmental sensors Use low-energy or solar energy sources for your Arduino board to avoid loading conventional energy grids Build an Arduino-based seismic monitor to protect your home Measure energy flows inside your home using temperature sensor arrays Pull together your environmental data in an energy consumption monitor Who this book is for
Programmers excited by Arduino Arduino users looking for green projects Embedded systems engineers interested in Arduino Table of Contents Saving the World: One Sensor at a Time Spider Temps: A Temperature Measurement Tool with Six Legs Jungle Power: Keeping an Arduino Alive on Solar, Batteries, and Super Capacitors Tele-sensation: Wireless Communication for Long-Distance Measurement Contributing to the Hive Mind: Submitting Your Data to Pachube The Mass Effect: Measuring Earthquakes with This Seismometer Staying Current: Keeping track of your power usage