EMBEDDED ADVENTURES: CONNECT THE WORLD AROUND YOU
Page 4
We love hearing what our customers are doing and sharing it, so others can get ideas and information.
Recently, we heard from Howie, who designed a clock to provide Network Time Protocol (NTP) synchronized Universal Coordinated Time along with six other time zones. He even managed to get his uber clock to show a line of text scrolling at the bottom. You can change the text by sending an email to the clock, which is a super nice touch.
Three of Embedded Adventures LDP-6432 tri-colour panels and a PLT-1001v4 driver board are controlled by a Raspberry Pi board programmed in Python. Howie says that having a full Linux operating system made the whole process fairly easy: “A configuration file makes it easy to select which six time zones you want to use without having to modify the base program.”
An email account was created for the clock to use as a source of the scrolling text. The Raspberry Pi checks its email account on a regular basis and passes the messages to the Python program.
Unfortunately, Howie said that he couldn't use the built-in scroll feature because he couldn't update the clock readout while scrolling the text. So, he wrote a routine in in the Python code that puts the message into a buffer that and steps through the buffer every display refresh cycle. This allows a network monitor system to send alerts to a clock in the NOC.
On startup, the Python program gets the assigned IP address and displays it in the text area for 20 seconds before beginning the program. This allows a user to find the clock's DHCP address and make an SSH connection to it from a remote terminal to make configuration changes.
Howie so kindly said, “The Embedded Adventures displays and driver module were very easy to work with once I got passed the initial learning curve. Thanks for all your help and great support. I will be ordering more stuff soon.”
Let us know what you're working on!
Below are some interesting, inspiring things going on around the world that encourage us to keep building, keep innovating.
These companies are mining the world’s data by selling street lights and farm drones
New Samsung connected LED bulbs can brighten your smart home
Security for the 'Internet of Things'
7 favorite Raspberry Pi projects
22-Year-Old Woman Gets World’s First 3-D Printed Skull
Like you, we aim to keep up with the industry chatter. If nothing else, then we can sound smart at a happy hour while we talk about our latest projects. Here are a few headlines that hopefully you will make you smarter or at least consider another point of view as you continue to build and create.
Getting started with the Raspberry Pi
Power Big Electronics Projects With The Controllino Arduino Board
GE and Quirky launch a connected AC unit that learns what you like
When Robots Dance: How Guy Hoffman Is Building a Better 'Bot
Internet Of Things Meets Cars: Security Threats Ahead
U.K. Internet Of Things B2B Startup, 1248, Bags £250K Seed To Help Others Scale Their Infrastructure
The internet of things will require new thinking on data centers
Jean-Baptiste Michel uses Embedded Adventures' Alphanumeric LED Display in his art piece "I WANT to be your idea of perfect."
The piece, which measures 48 x 5 inches, is a live feed of people's Tweets when people Tweet the words "I want." Their desires are displayed via Embedded Adventures' Alphanumeric LED Displays and update every few seconds.
The art piece was included in the 2014 SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York, NY.
For more on the exhibition: http://springbreakartfair.com/products/jean-baptiste-michel-i-want-to-be-your-idea-of-perfect
)
Jean-Baptiste Michel trained as an engineer in mathematics and computer sciences at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. He said, "My interests are much wider than my competences." Isn't this true of so many of us? Admirably, he's constantly curious, pursing human behavioral patterns in so many ways.
We had a newsletter go out this week. In case you missed it -- read it here.
In other global news:
The Internet of Things: New Threats Emerge in a Connected World
Internet of things can battle climate change
Cisco announces 'Internet of Things Grand Challenge'
RadioShack closing 1,100 stores after sales tumble 20%
22 Ads From The Glory Days Of RadioShack
Lego mulls letting customers 3D print their own bricks
Will 3D Printing Upend Fashion Like Napster Crippled the Music Industry?
Raspberry Pi marks 2nd birthday with plan for open source graphics driver