Omniversity of Manchester

Course times: 10am - 5:30pm Saturday.

Arduino boards have become the de-facto choice for physical computing projects and, with the addition of an Ethernet Shield, make an excellent platform on which to explore the Internet of Things.

Want your letterbox to email you whenever the postman has been? Need a clock to show you where your loved ones are? Or a glowing multi-coloured ambient orb to show your energy usage? This course will get you started on the road to realising your own Internet-connected projects.

Real World Examples

• Twitter-monitoring, bubble-blowing Arduino-bot
• TshirtOS: Tweets on a T-Shirt
• GPS Shoes
• Interactive Player Piano

What you need to be familiar with

A familiarity with Arduino is also essential – we won't be covering the Arduino basics. If you are new to Arduino, we recommend you attend our Beginners' Guide to Arduino and Physical Computing course on 27th April.

Learning Outcomes

• How to add an Ethernet Shield to an Arduino Uno device and how to connect and configure it to access the Internet
• How the HTTP protocol works, and how to use it to talk to web servers
• How to use libraries like HttpClient and TextFinder to ease the programming
• How to use a breadboard to prototype circuits, and interact with components through software
• How to use temperature sensors and RGB LEDs

Software and costs

The course is £135 - which includes an Ethernet Shield and a selection of components, wires and cables.

All software is freely available and copies will be distributed with the course materials on the day.

We will be using the Arduino IDE, version 1.0.1 or later, which can be downloaded from http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software for all platforms.

Equipment you’ll need

You will need to bring a computer, ideally a laptop, with a recent version of Linux, Windows or OSX installed. You will need a USB interface on this computer. You’ll also need to bring an Arduino with you - either an Uno or a Duemilanove. You can purchase an Ardunio Uno on the day at MadLab. Lunch and refreshments are provided.

Suggested preparatory work

• Install the Arduino IDE
• Make sure the application starts and runs properly on your computer - on some Linux distributions, you need to install extra software.

About the tutor

Best known for Twitter-watching bubble machine Bubblino, Adrian McEwen has been connecting interesting things to the Internet since 1995. He looks after the Arduino Ethernet library and runs IoT consultancy and product company MCQN. You can find him on twitter as @amcewen.