Starter Kit App

Overview

This repository contains code to run a Ruby on Rails web application for a starter kit. The starter kit consists of a buzzer, a 4-digit display, a light sensor, a potentiometer, and an ultrasonic range sensor connected to a TI C32200sf board via a Grove Base Boosterpack.

The web application allows users to see data from the sensors in a browser window.

Requirements

In order to use this code, you will need to have rails installed and bundler installed.

To see the live updating web app functionality implemented in the live_update branch or the live_change_display branch, you will also need to have a redis server installed. If you are on a mac, you can do this by running 'brew install redis'.

Set up

Connect one end of a USB cable to the port at the top of the TI C32200SF board and the other end to a USB port on your computer.

Connect the five sensors to the following ports on the Grove Base Boosterpack:

• Connect the potentiometer to port J6.
• Connect the light sensor to port J8.
• Connect the 4-digit display to port J9.
• Connect the ultrasonic range finder to port J10.
• Connect the buzzer to port J11.

For more information about the sensors and their interfaces, see the Starter Kit page in the Apiotics portal.

Branches

There are four branches in this repository.

• The master branch contains code for a rails application for the starter kit.
• The change_display branch builds off the master branch and contains additional logic to display the position of the potentiometer on the 4-digit display.
• The live_update branch also builds off the master branch but contains additional logic to automatically update the data from the sensors on the web app.
• The live_change_display branch contains the additional logic from the change_display branch AND the live_update branch, to both update the display with the potentiometer position AND automatically update the web app with data from the sensors.

Note: For the live_update branch and the live_change_display branch, you will need to install a redis server in order to see updates on the web app without refreshing the page.

Implementation

1. Decide which branch in the repository has the functionality you want, and clone it onto your local machine.

2. If you are using Linux, uncomment the following line in the Gemfile: # gem 'mini_racer', platforms: :ruby.

3. In config/initializers/apiotics.rb, set config.public_key and config.private_key to the public and private keys of your Hive, which can be found on the Apiotics portal near the top of your Hive's page. Copy and paste the corresponding keys instead of "nil" in the following lines:

  config.public_key = nil #set this to an Environment variable
  config.private_key = nil #set this to an Environment variable

4. If you don't already have bundler installed, run gem install bundler then run bundle.

5. Run rake db:migrate.

6. For the change_display or live_change_display branches, navigate to app/models/starter_kits/potentiometer.rb and insert the name of your device where it says #insert device name here in quotes. The name of your device can be found on the Starter Kit page in the Apiotics portal under the Worker Instances section. If you are using the master or live_update branch, skip this step.

7. To start communication with the web app, run rake dev_comms:start.

8. If you are using the live_update or live_change_display branch, start a redis server by opening a new terminal and running redis-server. Leave this terminal open in the background.

9. Run rails server (or rails s).

10. To see the web app, browse to http://localhost:3000/starter_kits.

Note: Every time you change the code you will need to run dev_comms:restart (or dev_comms:stop then dev_comms:start) in order to see the updates on the web app.

More Info

Starter Kit page in the Apiotics portal