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Building a Sensor/Actuator IoT System�Using a Raspberry Pi Pico

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Controllers:�The Heart of IoT

  • The nature of “The Internet of Things” is connecting sensors and actuators to microcontrollers
  • For Industrial and Commercial IoT, these microcontrollers
    • Collect telemetry from sensors
    • Provide real-time alerts and operational control
    • Process telemetry using programs (using variations on common languages like Python and C++)
    • Send commands to actuators
    • Can organize the data and send it (using Internet protocols) to local or cloud-based services for analytics and optimizers

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Microcontrollers�The Kid Brother

  • Industrial and Commercial IoT Controllers would seem to be a world-apart from microcontrollers, such as Arduinos, ESP32s and Raspberry Pi Picos …
  • But, they’re not
    • For the most part, it’s simply a matter of scale and scope

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Raspberry Pi Pico

  • The Raspberry Pi Pico has
    • A set of of General Purpose IO Pins (GPIO) that can be programmed to be an input [collect telemetry from sensors] or output [send commands to actuators]
    • Communications protocols to connect to networks for transmission of telemetry
    • Compute power running control programs using general purpose programming languages (MicroPython and C++)

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What Will You �Be Doing …

  • What this lab is all about:
    • Get to know the Pico as a Microcontroller
    • Learn how to build simple IoT circuits using sensors and actuators
    • Program the Pico to perform IFTTT (If-This-Then-That) activities
    • Send telemetry to computers and services for analytics

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A Look at the Kit

  • Let’s take a look at what’s in the kit:
    • Raspberry Pi Pico (not the WiFi version)
    • LED Display
    • PIR Motion Sensor
    • Piezo Buzzer
    • Potentiometers
    • LEDs and LED Strip
    • Push Buttons
    • 330 Ohm Resistors
    • Breadboard
    • Male-to-Male and Male-to-Female Jumper Wires
    • USB Cable with Power Switch

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So …�Let’s Have Some Fun