GAIA-Workshop

Exercises and companion material used in the GAIA project's workshops in schools.

Repository structure

• code: Contains the code for the workshop running of the Raspberry Pi lab kit
• demo: Various demos used for presentations
• firmware: Arduino firmware for the Arduino Gauge
• tests: Libraries to run the workshop exercises without the lab kit

Getting Started

Hardware

In order to utilize the workshop as intended a Raspberry Pi with the Grove Pi shield are required. The workshop exercises also use modified parts from the Electroninks Circuit Scribe kit. The following list contains most of the materials used.

• Raspberry Pi
• Grove Pi
• Grove - LCD RGB Backlight
• Grove - Button x2
• Grove - Digital Light Sensor
• Electroninks Circuit Scribe
  • Electroninks Conductive Ink
  • Two color LEDs
  • Switch
  • Two-pin connectors
    • Resistors (10k Ohms x2, 470k Ohms x2)
    • Photo-resistor
  • Two-pin Cables (Yellow - White)
  • Three-pin Cables (Yellow - Black - Red)
• Arduino Gauge Led Rings

Software

The workshop's software is written in Python 2.7. It requires Grove Pi's software suite, which can be installed following these instructions. A few exercises also require python-forecastio library for acquiring weather information, which can be installed usingpip install python-forecastio. If you want to use the default data provider, a SparkWorks account is also required.

The exercises are split in 4 different workshops depending on their focus

• Workshop1: Introductory course to familiarize the students with basic concepts
• Workshop2: Course to examine the lighting of the school's classrooms
• Workshop3: Course to examine the temperature and humidity of the classrooms
• Workshop4: Course to examine the power usage of the school building monitored by the GAIA installation

Usage

Lab Kit

In order to run the exercises, simple navigate to the folder code/. You can execute each individual exercise simply by

python GAIA-Workshop1.1.py

Of course, if you want to run any other one, substitute the argument in the command above with the filename of any other exercise.

Testing

If you want to run the exercises in your local computer without the lab kit for testing purposes you will have to copy the exercise from the code/ directory into the test/ folder. For example from the project's root directory you can execute

cp code/GAIA-Workshop1.1.py tests/

Afterwards navigate to the tests/ directory and execute the exercise as described above. If your local machine has both Python 2 and Python 3, depending which one is the default, you might need to use

python2 GAIA-Workshop1.1.py

to invoke Python 2

properties.py

In order to use SparkWorks as your data provider, you will also need to provide a properties.py file with your credentials and some other configuration options. You can find a template below

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
username = ""
password = ""
uuid = ""
GPSposition=[latitude,longitude]

# Names of the classrooms with environmental sensors.
# Choose no more than three and put them in the list
# named 'the_rooms'.
# "Room 1", "Room 2"
the_rooms = ["Room 1", "Room 2"]

# According the list above, choose the classroom which you
# want to monitor for power consumption. Despite the
# selection being done according to the classroom selected,
# the power sensor might monitor a larger part of the school,
# depending on its location. Usually choose the classroom
# the workshop is using, in order for the exercises to
# be conducted without causing disruptions to the rest of
# the school.
lab_room = "Room 1"

client_id = ""
client_secret = ""

Code Structure

The workshop code follows the structure of an Arduino sketch. An exclusion is the main() function, which is the entry point of each exercise. In there the setup() function is used to initialize the parameters of each exercise and the loop() function which handles input, output and updates the data until exit.

Function Name	Description
setup()	Used to initialize each exercise, such as the Grove Pi I/O, the LCD screen and the Arduino Gauge led rings. Also, the connection and in some cases the initial data acquisition from the data provider happens here. Lastly, it displays a few information about the configuration, such as the username, the building and which phenomenon is being measured.
loop()	Updates and displays new data and handles user input from the buttons and the switch. In some cases, it handles the initial data acquisition too if it is not in setup(). Input from the buttons and the switch is handled by checkBUtton() and checkSwitch() respectively.
initData()	Connects to the data provider. In the current implementation connects to the SparkWorks platform using the provided library. Refer to section Using another data provider for more information.
update[Site]Data()	Retrieves data from the data provider. In the current implementation connects to the SparkWorks platform using the provided library. Refer to section Using another data provider for more information.

Using another data provider

If you want to use a different data provider you can redefine initData() and update[Site]Data(). The only requirement is to have them return your data in a form the rest of the exercise can utilize.

• In the case of initData(), the only requirement is to return the classrooms's or phases's names being monitored as the second product.

• In the case of update[Site]Data(), the returned products are always a timestamp in unix time and a list of 48 measurement. In some cases more products are returned, such as the maximum and minimun values. Refer to each exercises's code for more information

Authors

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License.