INTEL IoT BUILDATHON
A Node Js on Yocto
Experience!
Open source electronics is on the rise, no doubt, and Intel
at dekut is at the fore front of this revolution. Intel IoT Buildathon was
another success. The event saw 63 attendees converge at the Dedan Kimathi
University incubation center, DeHUB to improve their skill using Intel Galileo
and Intel XDK IoT Edition, and to create solutions for local communities. The major focus was
to let developers get into the internet of things world using Intel Galileo and
Intel XDK IoT Edition with Node Js.
Wednesday 30th September,
2015 9:00 am| Registration Desk
Anticipation was already
high as early as 8.30 am and by nine am several people had lined up at our
registration desk. They were warmly welcomed by the registration team. They
produced their free Eventbrite tickets, their names were checked after which
they were allowed to get in.
Morning session, 9:30-12.30 am
The event kicked off at
9.30 am after a good number had got in, +Ngesa Marvin gave a keynote address
thanking everyone for coming and
encouraging people to create awareness through the social media platforms using
the hangtags #AndroidOnIntel and #IntelAtDekut . He then took the audience
through the event schedule and made them aware that the event was fully
sponsored by Intel.
Students were also enlightened
about the Intel Student Partner Program and informed on what the student
partnership spells out for them, and the perks it brings. He also encourage the
students to apply for the program in future.
+Billy Rotich then introduced the Internet
of Things (IoT) by defining it as an environment in which
objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability
to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or
human-to-computer interactions. He emphasized on how Intel helps connect things
to the cloud with secure data management.
He also touched on the
IoT building blocks listing them as Things, Gateways, Network & Cloud and
Service creation. He concluded by covering the applications of IoT in the
industry. He mentioned that in the automotive sector, consumers want the
digital experiences in their vehicles to align with the ones they enjoy
everywhere else. With IoT in the energy industry, consumers, businesses, and
utility providers get the information they need to better manage their
energy-connected things to consume less energy.
Thereafter +Michael Ikua took it up
and talked about getting started with Intel Galileo and Intel Edison using
Wyliodrin. Wyliodrin is a web-based service that offers a visual IDE for
your development boards. It is accessible directly from any browser and is
compatible with both Intel Edison and recently the 2nd generation Intel Galileo
platforms etc, with only minimal configuration requirements for your
board. He listed the benefits of using Wyliodrin and encouraged the
upcoming developers to kick start their developer journey using Intel Galileo
and Intel Edison with Wyliodrin.
INTEL EDISON 101
Soon after, +C, took to the stage and talked
about the Intel Edison. He started off by giving a brief introduction on the
Edison and why Intel decided to come up with the miniature device.
Barsolai then went on to give an overview of the
Edison and why to many, it still is a wonder how the device was conceived.
According to him, the Edison is a whole computer on a tiny chip, or more
figuratively, it is a tiny power efficient development platform the size of an
SD Card. With the Edison, it features a less familiar albeit much more
practical higher density connector, but while still retaining a truly
Barsolai explained why the Edison was a fundamental
must-have development platform for IoT lovers. The Intel Edison development
platform was designed to lower the barriers to entry for a range of Inventors,
Entrepreneurs and consumer product designers to rapidly prototype and produce
IoT and wearable computing products.
As conclusion to his
presentation, Barsolai finished with an outstanding encouragement to every tech
lover to get more involved in technological projects and use Intel architecture.
In
between, developers were served with refreshments.
MPESA
DISPENSOR | A cell phone mobile money controlled dispensing machine
Arunga Sang then
introduced their Mpesa Dispenser. In this project, Sang argues that:
Dispensing applications that exist
today requires:
a).
A buyer to use coins to buy goods. Coins are bulky and at times coins become
scarce in an economy. Those two problems
make the existing dispensing machines inefficient.
b). A buyer to use smart card to buy goods. Smart cards require internet connection to a bank account , which at times is poor hence no one can buy goods at
that time. Smart cards give one access to all your
money in a bank account and incase it is
stolen one can lose all the money
they have in a bank account.
Besides
that, one needs a third party at the
dispensing application so as to buy goods. But with their project, the Cell-phone
controlled dispensing machine uses CELL-PHONE
MOBILE MONEY to buy goods. CELLPHONE MOBILE
MONEY overcomes the problem associated with scarcity of coins in an
economy, since one can send the exact amount of money needed to buy goods. With
CELL-PHONE MOBILE MONEY, the buyer’s money
in the bank account is not vulnerable to fraud as it is with smart card since
the buyer’s money in CELL-PHONE MOBILE MONEY is
not linked to the lump sum money in the bank. Thus a buyer only loads CELL-PHONE MOBILE MONEY account on the cell phone
with only the money that is meant for expenditure. Finally, there is a higher
adoption rate for CELL-PHONE MOBILE MONEY than
it is for smart cards, in Kenya. Therefore a Cell-phone controlled dispensing
application will be popular than any dispensing application.
Let’s Do it Live | Room Temperature Detection
with Intel Galileo, Mobile App and Temperature sensor…
+Alfred Muriithi then took the audience through a
live demo on how to set up an interactive room temperature project with lcd rbg
and temperature sensor using intel Galileo and grove kit sensors.
Once the code is uploaded, the LCD showed an initial purple
light (because of color R, color G and color B set at 255 each). As soon as the
Temperature sensor sensed the room temperature, which it checked after every 5
seconds, the following 2 conditions took place:
If the Temperature is less than 27 degrees,
For temperature greater than 27 degrees,
Break, 11.30-12.00 am
We then had a break where
everyone got a chance to enjoy the juice and snacks, this also provided a short
networking session where the attendees met old friends, made new valuable
friends and even exchanged contacts.
Second Session, 12.00- 1.00 pm
OPEN SOURCE ELECTRONICS/JAVASCRIPT ELECTRONICS AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS
Since we were young, no
one likes sharing. We kept our toys away
because we felt other people were going to break them. This trends is the same
in business, we patent our ideas and make them remain ours, but when it comes
to social media we have the fascination of sharing every details about
ourselves, about our everyday lives. +Ngesa Marvin got to stage and explained
the new concept of open source community and on how we can still earn money
with open source concept. He explained how open source software communities
such as Firefox, Android and Linux have built amazing software’s. The same now
with hardware such as Intel Galileo and Intel Edison where people build amazing
things.
In sharing, he explained
that there will be better quality products as developers get feedback from
people who are using that product all the way from the development cycle. He
explained about Arduino, the first open source hardware platform, and how Intel
developed Galileo from Arduino. He
encouraged the developers to work together, rethink the entire education
system, and to share knowledge to promote the open source community, because in
shiring they also learn.
INTEL GALILEO LESSON ZERO
He then introduced
the microcontroller board as a rapid prototyping environment which combines the
power of Linux, Intel Quark processor and Arduino programming environment. The
new developer board is simple interactive and can support complex projects like
humanoid robots. The main advantage of using Quark
processors is that it that
it is faster and power efficient compared to other well-known architectures.
Besides that, Galileo has an on-board RTC (real time clock), which is able to
track time even when the board is powered off. Other boards rely on connection
to the Internet to get the current date and time. . He also talked about other
features of the board such as Serial, W-Fi, Bluetooth and GSM cards
Connectivity, USB Interface, Wireless Access among others.
He also took the
newbies into step by step installation of Intel Galileo drivers and the Arduino
IDE then showed them the code structure.
He advised the audience to later apply the knowledge in building
something that could solve problems in our own country.
Lunch Break 1.00pm- 2.00 pm
Afternoon Session |2.00pm-3.30pm
Node Js on Yocto
The web is evolving, web
technology is jumping beyond the browser. From design to languages. This was
brought into light by +Denzel Wambugu who gave a guide to IoT the JavaScript Way using
Intel Galileo. He explained how various programming languages are now being
used to program robots, embedded devices and various physical technologies.
Here is a rough list:
- Nodebots (nodebots.io)
- Artoo (artoo.io)
- GoBots (gobots.io)
He explained how the
various techniques have enabled and equipped web developers with superpowers to
program devices that run on runtime and understand their web codes. This gives
them the ability to design and make IOT systems with their coding skills using Intel
architecture.
NODEBOTS
He also explained about Nodebots,
robots driven by JavaScript and elaborated on the various libraries that enable
this. Some few include:
- Johnny-five (johnny-five.io)
- Cyclon Js
- Mraa
He then took the
developers through the processes of downloading and installing Node Js. He
showed them how to plug in their boards and load them with standard firmata.
(Going to edit>examples>firmata>standardfirmata).
He also took them through
the use of terminal where developers entered their project directory. Jonny
five was installed using node package
manager and developers were able to use their favorite editor to hack into
Galileo Boards. Developers then dived
into the hello world moments by typing the codes below and running the
JavaScript file.
var five =
require("johnny-five");
var board = new five.Board();
board.on("ready",
function() {
var led = new five.Led(13);
led.blink(1500);
});
The LED pin 13 on the
Galileo Board then blinked after a half a second.
Women and Tech| 3.30pm-4.00 pm
After one and a half hour
deep into JavaScript Electronics, +Ev took to the stage and talked
about women in technology. The ladies were advised to take one step at a time
to learn so as to widen their minds to seek various opportunities. “Men and ladies have the same minds and
ladies have been known to succeed in other fields for instance in Economics, and
hence ladies can succeed too in this field, “She said.
She appreciated the
amazing ladies who braved the man-dominated tech world and placed everything
aside to attend this event. She pointed out that
Intel at DeKUT should increase the visibility, community and resources for
technical women.
Ladies were part of the event too, and they truly enjoyed
themselves.
Startup X Hour|4.OO-5.OOpm
DeKUT APP
Just like any university,
life in Dekut can be pretty hectic. There is so much that happens around that
in some cases, we only hear off when it’s too late or when it's passed.
Therefore a great need for information. Good thing is, this information is
available, and the only problem is how to access it.
Well, a member of Intel
at DeKUT developers’ community used Intel XDK to develop a mobile app that let
student push notifications and announce without going to the noticeboard.
The app is already in
play store, with a good number of downloads. They believe the Intel XDK Built
app will be the best campus companion in the students’ hands.
M.I.Tek
Another
start up, MITek then went on stage. The startup trains embedded software programming and
suppliers open source hardware such Intel Galileo, Intel Edison, sensors and
other hardware’s.
The startup strive to advance knowledge and educate students in various
learning institutions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)
through Innovations.
EGAS
Soon
after, +Felix Kipkoech took it up, they
are connecting gas sellers to the consumers. They are already supplying the gas
in Nyeri town. They have partnered with local suppliers connecting them with
potential buyers.
Leaked! |SoftBallot releasing their third version soon
Athena I, softballot third version is coming. The
SoftBallot Chief Technology Officer, +Irene Ng’etich confirmed that in her presentation during
the startup x hour. In all institutions of higher learning across our continent
manual voting has been the means through which elections are carried out.
Manual voting has had its fair share of challenges in that a lot of time is
wasted, it is inconveniencing and the cost incurred is immense. This is why, as
Irene Ng’etich, explains, they came up with +Softballot Kenya
“SoftBallot is a simple, secure and suffrage online
voting system which guarantees accurate and real-time results. Using
SoftBallot, you can actually vote from any part of the world,” she said.
She continued to explain the journey to where they
have reached as a start-up company, the great brains behind the success of the
company and the vision they have which is actually to completely revolutionize
how our society make decisions.
They believe SoftBallot Athena will be a turning
point, in their lives, in the history of democracy and the history of
civilization. They feel the ordinary people should have freedom, a chance to
shape their own destiny, and a chance to govern themselves.
Their dream is to empower ordinary people with the
best possible election tools and set their fellow citizens and the whole world
to the path of true democracy.
You can follow their activities on twitter @softballot
and on Facebook; #Elections360degrees #Egineeringdemocracy and #Democracyhandledwithcare
As a great indication of their determination, the
Technical lead announced that they will be releasing the SoftBallot’s 3rd
version in October.
The Journey thus far| A fireside chat with DeKUT Tech X.
The event concluded with a chat from members of Tech
X. Their core believe, they says is using technology to turn problems into innovations,
all for humanity and at the same time build a strong tech community where
people can share and learn from each other.
They explained how they
got motivated from a generation os students they found in dekut and how that
generation set them to a non-reversible path of tech. They also talked about
their enthusiasm in changing the institution that houses them for the better. They
talked about team work and what can be possible when different people with
unique skills work together and why they feel DeKUT has the potential to become
a great university like MIT.
They called upon everyone
to find something unique in which they can work on and make significant
contributions to their lives, their university and the community.
The event concluded with a closing remarks from +Ngesa Marvin . Special
gratitude to +Intel for granting us such an amazing opportunity. The best
company of all!
