SAC-100: Cheerlights Snowman - Holiday Electronics Crafts
What You'll Learn
GET' into the holiday spirit with this festive & fun class!
In this workshop, we’ll build a snowman that changes color based on the current color at the Cheerlights Live website https://cheerlights.com/.
The worldwide Cheerlights color can be changed by anyone with a tweet, so it changes often and at random intervals. We’ll use an ESP8266 NodeMCU Internet of Things module to connect to the Cheerlights site, using ThingSpeak. Each time our snowman updates its color, it will use a servo to “melt” over a period of time. When the Cheerlights color updates, our snowman will stand up again and refresh its color.
We’ll then add a soundboard and speaker to play a fun sound whenever the color changes.
This is a great introduction to Internet of Things, ThingSpeak and MQTT, sound files, and simple Arduino environment programming. No prior experience necessary and great for families. You’ll go home with a fun and colorful holiday project!
We'll cover:
- Wiring up a snowman
- Programming using the arduino IDE and NodeMCU
- Connecting it to ThingSpeak
- Reacting to web-requested changes
Skills
- Programming
- Arduino
- IoT
- ThingSpeak
Important Information
No prior experience necessary and great for families. You’ll go home with a fun and colorful holiday project!
Bring your own laptop if you'd like (please download the arduino ide ahead of time here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software) or use one of Hacker Lab's computers.
Using your own laptop is recommended if you want to keep playing with the programming of the snowman after the class.
Parent-Child teams under 1 ticket are encouraged!