Course Overview –
The Elecfreaks smart home kit is designed to help you get started with exploring the world of electronics with a focus on home automation. Simply speaking a “Smart Home” is a home equipped with the lighting, heating, cooling, visual, sound appliances, miscellaneous electronic devices that can be controlled remotely (and automated) by a smartphone or a computer. A “Smart Home” usually allows for automation of simple tasks (e.g. turning lights on only when someone enters the room, checking if your plant needs watering and turning on the water supply for a brief instant, turning off all the lights in the house at a predefined time at night, etc.) with a view to increasing efficiency (reducing consumption, cost of energy, etc.) and allowing for easier access to controls (for the given appliance).
It’s this combination of software, smart hardware (e.g. lights that can sense humans and turn on) combined with automation capability and integration with other smart devices allows us to build such “Smart Homes”. These days “Smart Home” controls (e.g. switches, sensor readings, etc.) are made available over the internet increasing the accessibility to controls and allowing home owners to control their appliances sitting anywhere in the world. Get started with your own STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) learning journey using the Elecfreaks Smart Home kit.
Learning Prerequisites –
These tutorials will help you build upon the knowledge gained coding with Scratch and the BBC Makecode editor. This is a beginners micro:bit electronics track. We would highly recommend that you complete the following tracks before you start off with this track.
Take on the SmartHome Kit for BBC micro:bit development track to get a taste of the type of electronics projects you can build using the BBC micro:bit. If you are looking for a more structured introductory electronics track to dive into the world of electronics we would highly recommend considering the following –
With the ~11 sensors you will challenge yourself in many different ways, gain experience working with each of the electronic components and learn concepts around Smart Home, IoT (Internet Of Things) and Home Automation. Here’s a list of tutorials that cover use of the components included in the Sensor kit for the BBC micro:bit. The micro:bit tinker kit comes along with documentation for 9 different tutorials covering the different components provided in the kit. You will explore different fundamentals of electronics by creating circuits and programming them using the BBC makecode block editor. Links to the documentation online have been provided at the end of this page.
Prerequisites –
About BBC micro:bit –
The Micro Bit (also referred to as BBC Micro Bit, stylised as micro:bit) is an ARM-based embedded system designed by the BBC for use in computer education in the UK. The board is 4 cm × 5 cm and has an ARM Cortex-M0 processor, accelerometer and magnetometer sensors, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, a display consisting of 25 LEDs, two programmable buttons, and can be powered by either USB or an external battery pack. The device inputs and outputs are through five ring connectors that are part of the 23-pin edge connector at the bottom of the board. The micro:bit can be programmed using the Microsoft Block code program editor which is similar to the block based language Scratch ideal for 7-12 year olds. The micro:bit can also be programmed using the Makecode editor in Javascript and Python which allows for older kids to learn the Javascript and Python programming language using the micro:bit.
You can read more about the BBC micro:bit at the microbit website. Also see Kitronik’s resources here – Parents Complete Guide To The BBC micro:bit.