Adafruit PyPortal from Twitter to weather

I have had the Adafruit PyPortal for a while and finally got around to playing with it. The PyPortal cames as part the Adabox011 

1. Getting going

PyPortal contains a colour TFT touch screen; speaker; NeoPixel; sensors for light and temperature sensor;  microSD slot; ports for I2C and pins for either analogue or digital; with built-in 8MB flash memory. It uses both CircuitPython and Arduino. In this post, CircuitPython is used. A more detailed overview of the device is available at https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pyportal 

To set it up I started from https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pyportal/updating-your-pyportal, I already had CircuitPython installed so skipped ahead after updating the firmware to PyPortal CircuitPython Setup and then the enjoyable bit Internet Connect! 

2 From Twitter to Weather

Time to play. There is an interesting example, developed by John Parks (https://learn.adafruit.com/users/johnpark) PyPortal Twitter Follows Trophy (https://learn.adafruit.com/pyportal-twitter-follows-trophy) which turns the PyPortal into a 'scoreboard' for twitter follows. The first few sections describing setting the system up in terms of CircuitPython, internet connection and updating the firmware, similar to the links above. The code starts at https://learn.adafruit.com/pyportal-twitter-follows-trophy/code-pyportal-with-circuitpython the description is really useful and essentially uses JSON information about followers and displays it on the PyPortal.

Using this code as the core of a new project, the device was changed to collect weather data for the current weather (and yes I do know I can just look out of the window but this seems like fun) from a website. 

To get started a source of the data was needed and a company Weather Unlocked: https://developer.weatherunlocked.com/ provides a service for local current weather information via their 'Local Weather API' in JSON form.  You need to sign in and create an APP_ID and APP_KEY, these are needed in the next stage. In the code, modify DATA_SOURCE = "https://cdn.syndication.twimg.com/widgets/followbutton/info.json?screen_names="+TWITTER_NAME to something like DATA_SOURCE = "http://api.weatherunlocked.com/api/current/51.50,-0.12?app_id={APP_ID}&app_key={APP_KEY}" with APP_ID and APP_KEY substituted and 51.50,-0.12 changed to the longitude and Latitude of your choice.

Using the URL Code Beautify (https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer) and you can look at the JSON output to get a sense of how the data is structured and see the information produced.

There is a weather description wx_desc, so the code was changed to use DATA_LOCATION = ["wx_desc"] the rest is minor tweaks on the original John Parks code.

Change to DATA_LOCATION = ["temp_c"] and get (not surprsingly) the temperature.

The code used is here:

3. Overview

I enjoyed playing with this so far and look forward to playing with it a bit more. Thank you to John Parks for such a good starting point and WeatherUnlocked for such a useful feed.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

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All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

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All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Free Web based Augmented Reality (AR)

This post is part of the materials for a session on Augmented Reality presenting at the 2019 SolSTICE eLearning and CLT Conference 5-6th June 2019 Edge Hill University https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/solstice/files/2019/05/2019-Book-of-Abstracts.pdf  and the #MergedFutures Event on 14th June 2019.

1. Introduction

                                                                                

So if we go to

https://thimbleprojects.org/scottturneruon/692403

Using the markers above with this url running on your device (with a camera enabled) it should add two new objects over the markers. you will need a copy of these images and printed them out. If you have it I would suggest running it in Firefox.

2. Getting Started

The guide for all this is https://aframe.io/blog/arjs/, with this you have pretty much everything you need.

To start your own go to https://glitch.com/ -> new project ->Hello World project

In the index.html deleted everything in there and replace it with

Should have a white box over the Hiro marker when the web camera/phone/tablet is shown the markers.

The code  not in bold below just sets it up - to play with it we don’t need to worry about what it does - we can just use it. The bit in bold is the bit initially we change or add to – in this case it puts a default white box over the marker.

It can be seen at https://decisive-cookie.glitch.me

3. Playing with other objects

Now if we replace

With

We get a blue ball in place of the box

Now for some fun

http://www.pngall.com/bee-png/download/84 is a bee image – download it

Go back to Glitch, and if we go to assets we can add the image. Open up the folder that has the downloaded image and drag it into the asset window.

When it stops downloading and shows the image, click on the image to get the new web address we are going to need that next. so take a copy of it.

If we replace

With the following by just adding in src="https://cdn.glitch.com/04b86bba-0978-4bf4-b3a7-2ece72336f90%2FBee-PNG.png" as below

 

We get a blue ball with a bee stretched over it. But it doesn’t look that great if we remove the color=”blue” we see the bee stuck at the bottom of the ball still but the colours are back.

Now if we replace

    

With commands to rotate the sphere

We get a rotating sphere with the image on it.

This can be found at https://simplistic-wakeboard.glitch.me and works with the Hiro marker

If you want to find out how I felt about presenting go to https://dandy-custard.glitch.me/

Now let's try a GIF

https://giphy.com/gifs/ar-vr-uon-dWsKM0qQeY9DhSUslT/media

Download the GIF and then copy (drag and drop) into the asset folder of your project  get the web address and put into src=”” in place of the one that is there already

An example can be found at https://root-reply.glitch.me/ and works with the Hiro marker.

4. Issues and Thoughts

• Make sure all the markers have white space surrounding them.

• Video is fun
• It is browser dependent on Firefox https://thimbleprojects.org/scottturneruon/692403 would place a video on Chrome and so others it is a static image.
• There are ways around it https://cloudy-nation.glitch.me a play button is added but it does involve more code https://glitch.com/~cloudy-nationWallace https://www.northampton.ac.uk/directories/people/roy-wallace/
• The QR code approach doesn’t always work with all phones and tablets.

• If I am honest, the technology is cool and useful for educational use, but I not sure where it all can go.   The question is what can others come up with to use it, I would love to hear about it.

Free Educational Augmented Reality from Scott Turner

Related Links

• How to videos... Web based Augmented Reality https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-videos-web-based-augmented.html
• Basic guide and starting point https://aframe.io/blog/arjs/#move-the-camera-or-the-marker
• Example: White block (needs the Hiro marker) https://gregarious-fibre.glitch.me/
• Example: An image is added to block (needs the Hiro marker) https://glitch.com/~dandy-custard
• Further guidance on setting up AR through AR.js https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/07/webvr-3-playtime-augmented-reality.html
• Further guidance adding objects into AR https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/07/webvr-4-playtime-putting-objects-into.html
• Guide on adding video into AR https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/10/webvr5-playtime-augmented-reality-to.html 

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon