Download Raspberry Pi

Wrapping up
Gordon Henderson's website also provides a guide to installing the Arduino
IDE onto the Raspberry Pi and configuring it to work with the Gertboard.
The instructions can be found at the following URL:
https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/gertboard/
So with two new boards to explore and some different libraries, let's look at some
future projects that can leverage your existing hardware or use one of the other
shields we have looked at.
Ideas for next step projects
This book has provided you with a variety of projects that provide tools for sensing
and automating your home environment.
Armed with the knowledge from completing these projects, you are now equipped
with the skills to expand your existing projects and create exciting new devices.
This list provides some potential projects for the future.
Expanding the curtain automation tool to
include temperature sensing
Your current application from Chapter 7, Curtain Automation – Open and Close the
Curtains Based on the Ambient Light, uses light to decide when to open and close the
blinds/curtains.
You can now try combining the thermometer from Chapter 4, Our First Project
– A Basic Thermometer with curtain-control device and re-write the software to
incorporate temperature data.
Using the thermistor, you can decide to open and close your blinds if the
temperature changes in order to conserve heat.
By expanding the database written in Chapter 6, Temperature Storage – Setting up a
Database to Store Your Results, we can also record the times when the curtains are
opened or closed, to give us an idea of how many hours of sunlight we received
across a day in a certain month of the year.
This project would need no further components than those used in Chapter 4, Our
First Project – A Basic Thermometer and Chapter 7, Curtain Automation – Open and Close
the Curtains Based on the Ambient Light.
[ 138 ]