Lesson 2: Arduino and LED
In this lesson, learn how to flash an LED strip to the beat of music using a small sound sensor, transistor and an external power source. This lesson will show you how to use open source libraries for Arduino. We will use the FastLED library for programming addressable LED strips and pixels such as WS2810, WS2811, and WS2812B. It will be reacting on the surrounding sound and music and will be playing like a visualizer.
In this build we’ll make a good looking light that dances to all sounds and music, using simple components and some basic Arduino programming.
Lesson 3 – Arduino Solar Tracker
In this lesson, we are going to make a single axis solar panel tracker using Arduino, in which we will use two LDRs (Light dependent resistor) to sense the light and a servo motor to automatically rotate the solar panel work on a range of principles with the purpose of aligning your panel directly towards the sun. A single axis solar tracker improves solar output by around 25% according to this article onJournal of Power and Energy Engineering.
Lesson 4 – Smart Weather Lamp and Alexa Voice Commands
Smart assistants like Amazon Alexa are quickly becoming more useful and central to a smart home atmosphere. While there are currently many Alexa-enabled devices available to control your lights, appliances, and electronics, there is no easy way to design your own devices without using microcontrollers. AWS IoT is a managed cloud platform that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices. In this lesson, we will go over how to utilize an ESP wireless microcontroller to control various smart home functions through Alexa!