Grove Starter Kit With Intel Galileo Gen 2: Getting Started

When I started with IoT I was all confused about electronics stuffs, resistors and circuits, then I got Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Kit plus. With this we have to just plug the sensor modules instead of managing it through soldering or breadboard. So let us see how easily we can get started with Internet of Things with Grove Starter Kit without worrying about electronic component and circuits.

The Grove Starter Kit is a complete development kit that consists of a collection of sensors, actuators and shields. It is a hardware and software solution to help you explore the IoT space and create innovative projects. The Grove Starter Kit is a better choice because:

• It accelerates development and testing with IoT.
  
• The Grove shield and sensors has 4 pin connectors that allow us to plug in the sensor with ease rather than managing circuits and sensors using breadboard.
  
• The Grove shield has been tested as compatible with Windows by the Windows IoT team.
  
• There is a huge variety of sensor modules available with Seed Studio.

If you are new to IoT, the Seed Studio Grove Starter Kit will help you to easily get started with development since you need not worry about circuits and other electronics stuff. With Grove shield and sensor modules you can easily create anything without worrying about electronic components much. There is no need to manage sensors using soldering or a breadboard. This article will guide you about how to set up and get running with the Grove Starter Kit plus and Intel Galileo.

The booklet contains instructions about basic sketches with Grove Starter Kit Plus.

Required Components

Intel Galileo Gen2 board
Seeed Studio Grove Starter Kit Plus – Intel IoT Edition for Intel Galileo Gen 2

Setting Up

Setup the Dev Environment
Download the Seeed Studios Sketchbook Starter

Adding SketchBook to Arduino IDE

• Extract the downloaded Sketchbook Starter.
• Open Arduino IDE.
• Select “File" -> "Preferences”.
  
  
  
  
  
• View the “Sketchbook Location” field.
  
  
• Click “Browse” and copy the Seed Studios Sketches folder you downloaded into the resulting folder and rename it something like “Sketchbook_Grove”.
  
  
  
  
  
• Restart your Arduino IDE.

Making Connections

Power up the Galileo, you will see the power LED light up. Galileo will start booting from the customized version of Linux. Wait a few seconds. Note: unlike the Galileo Gen 1 board, the Galileo Gen2 board uses a 12 V power supply. Use the specific power adapter that is provided with the Galileo Gen2 board.

Now we are ready to make the rest of the connections, we will connect Galileo to the computer via USB cable. Now we see the USB LED will light up.

Adding Grove Base Shield

In the Grove kit pull up the Pink Styrofoam underneath the LED screen to locate the Base Shield.

The Base Shield has a variety of 4-pin plugs for connecting various sensors to Intel Galileo.

Now attach the Base Shield to the Intel Galileo board and press down firmly. A green LED on the Base Shield will turn on when it is powered up.

Plugging in the Temperature Sensor Module

In the Grove Starter Kit Plus locate the Temperature Sensor Module, on its back side it will have written “Temperature Sensor”. Using one of the wires provided in the kit, attach it to your Base Shield unit. Be sure to plug it into the port marked A0 since it is the default port in the sample code but you can change it as desired.

Running up your first sketch

Open Arduino IDE.

Go to “File" -> "Sketchbook" -> "Sketchbook_Grove->Grove_Temperature_Sensor” to load the basic temperature sketch.

Sketch

// Define the pin to which the temperature sensor is connected.
const int pinTemp = A0;

// Define the B-value of the thermistor.
// This value is a property of the thermistor used in the Grove - Temperature Sensor,
// and used to convert from the analog value it measures and a temperature value.
const int B = 3975;

void setup()
{
    // Configure the serial communication line at 9600 baud (bits per second.)
    Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
    // Get the (raw) value of the temperature sensor.
    int val = analogRead(pinTemp);

    // Determine the current resistance of the thermistor based on the sensor value.
    float resistance = (float)(1023-val)*10000/val;

    // Calculate the temperature based on the resistance value.
    float temperature = 1/(log(resistance/10000)/B+1/298.15)-273.15;

    // Print the temperature to the serial console.
    Serial.println(temperature);

    // Wait one second between measurements.
    delay(1000);
}

Click the “Upload” button. You should see a “Transfer Complete” message if it is successfully deployed.

Viewing Sensor Results

To view the temperature reading of the deployed sketch, click the “Serial Monitor” button in the upper-right hand corner of the Arduino IDE.

The Serial Monitor is a separate pop-up window that acts as a separate terminal that communicates by receiving and sending Serial Data. See the icon on the far right of the image below. You can use the Serial Monitor to debug Arduino Software Sketches or to view data sent by a working Sketch.

You can see the output in the Serial Monitor. Now you are ready to do some more complex projects and dive into the world of IoT with many sensor modules provided by Seed Studio.