embedded systems to learn and create
Meetings
10:30am
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
A presentation on creating a house monitoring device, with sensors, reporting via cell phone text interface. Pretty cool stuff.
See the presentation pdf here or the page here or at Google here.
9:30 AM
ESP8266 OTA (Over the Air) Updates with Arduino IDE. OTA update is the process of loading a new firmware to ESP8266 module using WiFi connection rather than a serial communication. This type of functionality is extremely useful in case of no physical access to the ESP module.
This presentation, by Greg Lawrance, will include a hands on session for those who want to learn more. Please bring your PI, and preload the software referred to in the meetup announcement.
Presentation Notes
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
9:30am
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)
PHP the language of the Web (well one of the languages) can connect to SQLlite on the backend, storing your dynamic content in a database. In this presentation, you will see how to make that connection, and directly populate data (into your database) from the Web.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
Intro to Pi & Others is a short monthly session to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is an unstructured hour-long session where you can ask questions, bring in your Pi or Other (and power supply), and get help with your project.
We plan on holding these sessions once a month on a Tuesday night. If you are looking for a bit of help, this session is for you.
9:30 AM
Q-College, Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)
You have seen Craig carrying around routers, but he has never shown you what is inside. In this session, Craig will show you the Open Source alternative to Router Software, which supports over 1000 router models. There is a good chance your router is supported by OpenWrt/LEDE.
https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start
https://lede-project.org/toh/start
OpenWrt/LEDE also have excellent IPv6 support. What could be better to prepare you for the future of the internet.
View Presentation
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)
Introductiion to the ODROID, a ARM 64bit 1.5Ghz quad core single board computer!
The most advanced architecture for mobile devices and embedded 64-bit computing. Featuring 1.5Ghz cortex-A53 cores, high-performance 2Gbyte DDR3 SDRAM, Gigabit Ethernet and eMMC5.0 HS400
Also, Kali Linux, the Security Distro will be reviewed, and will demo some of the tools.
Saturday, 9:30 AM
Q-College
Suite 303 – 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC (map)
The Internet of things now can control things wirelessly. Control of things using inexpensive radio frequency switches (operating on 433 Mhz) and an ESP8266 micro controller.
wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266
June 24, 2017
Q Academy’s Manny Mandrusiak, Executive Director, and Leaoni Webb, Education Director provide a warm welcome and all the essentials for our Saturday morning gatherings. Thank you for being there Manny and Leaoni. Here’s a little something in appreciation of your hospitality.
PHP is a script language used on the backend of many webservers. Learn the basics of PHP, and how you can use it to make your Pi Project web accessible.
Saturday, June 10, 2017
9:30 AM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave, Victoria, BC
Please join us for a discussion/learning day about embedded projects. Bring in your Raspberry Pi’s, ESP8266, Arduino, whatever, and ask/answer questions and share what you are doing.
Look forward to seeing you there!
9:30 AM
We’ll recap what we learned in Part 1, and then expand our knowledge of how IPv6 really is different from IPv4 by learning about:
• Router Advertisements – Good info from the router
• Dive into DNS a bit more, learning about AAAA records
• Sniffing the network with wireshark
Resource: Craig Miller
See the full IPv6 tutorial (all parts) on www.makikiweb.com
85A Burnside Rd West (at Wascana), Victoria, BC (map)
Filesystems is what keeps track of the files on your Raspberry Pi. Linux supports several types of filesystems (including the ones used by Macintosh and Windows).
Chris K. will cover the basics of filesystems in the context of the Pi. We will look at the boot sequence, types of filesystems and their specific usages, and then we will dive into the structure of the both the boot and root filesystem (rootfs) partitions.
9:30 AM
Hayward will be talking about Python Webservers. The presentation will cover the basics of what they are, how they differ from a traditional web server, and provide examples of (and discussion around) some projects that he has setup using a python web server.
Presentation material is here.
9:30 AM
85A Burnside Rd West (at Wascana), Victoria, BC (map)
I²C. A common 2 wire bus, a brief background on how it works, and simple programming the Pi to read from and write to I²C devices on the bus. Devices include: External LCD display, 7 segment LEDs, and Addressable LED lights to name a few.
Join us and learn how to drive the I²C (pronounced eye-squared-see) from your Raspberry Pi.
9:30 AM
Why invent the wheel? Over the years Python has adopted of features from other languages, skillfully designed and proven useful and effective:
Two Python mini-languages: regular expressions, and string formatting.
As a plus an intro to Tkinter, the built-in Python GUI. Tkinter is a binding to Tk, one-half of the Tcl/Tk language, developed over the last 25 years.
The internet has run out of IPv4 addresses (as of Oct 2016). The future of the internet and networking will rely on the “new” IPv6 protocol.
There’s more to IPv6 than a really big address. Come and learn the basics of this foundation of the next generation Internet.
We’ll cover:
• Why do we need IPv6?
• Not your Grandmother’s IP
• IPv6 Addressing
• Hands on session (Please bring a computer for the hands on session: Pi, Laptop, BSD machine)
Resource: Craig Miller
9:30 AM
The VicPiMakers and Others, includes many devices besides the Raspberry Pi. At this meeting, Greg, will provide an over view of the ESP8266 is a low-cost Wi-Fi chip with full TCP/IP stack and MCU capability. He will highlight several different modules and dev boards, and the software options of Arduino code, and MIcroPython. There will also be a hands on session with the ESP devices.
Blinky Lights on BSD (Beaglebone Black)
Saturday, January 14, 2017
9:30 AM
Victoria Computer Club
85A Burnside Rd West (at Wascana), Victoria, BC (map)
If you ever had questions on how to integrate multiple devices together with 21st century security all controlled via a simple (looking) Android App, you won’t want to miss this meeting.
Join us for a similar but different demonstration of controlling LEDs running on one of the “Others” (a Beaglebone Black) using SSH and BSD. If that wasn’t enough, Mark G will also be showing a Raspberry Pi camera used to confirm that state of the LED, all under the control of a custom Android App.
See the full project here.
9:30 AM
85A Burnside Rd West (at Wascana), Victoria, BC (map)
A 14 inch by 10 inch Christmas tree which uses a music shield, a
neopixel ring (the treetop ornament), and a string of neopixels
(the tree’s lights). http://vicpimakers.ca/projects/arduino-projects/welcome-to-an-arduino-christmas/
9:30 AM
The Raspberry Pi has 30 GPIO pins, but none of them are analogue inputs. At this meeting, we’ll take a deeper look at how to take an analogue signal (like temperature) and connect it to the Pi, and access it via Python.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a hot topic. Join us, as we continue to explore the vast world of IoT using the Raspberry Pi. This weeks session will focus on IoT devices streaming data over the internet.
Saturday, November 12th, 2016
9:30 AM
Victoria Computer Club
85A Burnside Rd West (at Wascana), Victoria, BC
A full writeup for this presentation is available on the presenters website.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a hot topic. Join us, as we explore how to connect the Raspberry Pi to the IoT, and then monitor it via the Cloud.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
9:30 AM
Victoria Computer Club
85A Burnside Rd West (at Wascana), Victoria, BC
A full writeup for this presentation is available on the presenter’s website.