longboard_arduino

C++ (Arduino) Program to monitor longboard/skateboard stats (distance, speed, etc.)

Project Demo YouTube Video

What You Will Need

• Arduino Yún
• Grove Kit
  • Grove Base Shield
  • Grove LCD RGB Screen
  • Grove Button Module
  • 2x Grove Connector Cables
• Analog Hall Magnetic Sensor Module
• 4x Male-to-Female Jumper Cables
• Power Source (Portable USB Charger)
• Micro SD Card
• Micro SD Card Adapter
• Micro USB Cable
• A Magnet
• A Longboard
• PC / Laptop
• Remote Web Server

Note: This can all be done with or without a breadboard - Using a breadboard will give more functionality for any future additions to the project. For now, I will explain it without using the breadboard.

How To Set Up (Hardware)

• Connect the Grove Base Shield to the Arduino
• Connect the Grove LCD to one of the I2C ports on the Base Shield using a Grove Connector Cable
• Connect the Grove Button Module to pin 8 on the Base Shield using a Grove Connector Cable
• Connect one Male-to-Female Jumper Cable from the Analog Pin A1 on the Base Shield to the A0 connection on the Analog Hall Module
• Connect one Male-to-Female Jumper Cable from the GND (Ground) Pin on the Base Shield to the G connection on the Analog Hall Module
• Connect one Male-to-Female Jumper Cable from the 5V Pin on the Base Shield to the + connection on the Analog Hall Module
• Connect one Male-to-Female Jumper Cable from Pin 7 on the Base Shield to D0 connection on the Analog Hall Module
• Attach the Analog Hall Module to the side of the longboard deck, inside of the wheel
• Attach the magnet to the inside of the wheel

How To Set Up (Software)

• Follow the steps in these repositories first:
  • Database GitHub Repo
  • API GitHub Repo
  • Web App GitHub Repo
• Hold down the WLAN RST button on the Arduino Yún for 5 seconds
• Connect your PC / Laptop to the Arduino's WiFi network
• Go (http://arduino.local/) (Arduino) or (http://192.168.240.1) (Linino) in your browser
• Enter the Arduino password (The default is arduino (Arduino) or doghunter (Linino))
• The Arduino and Linino Dashboards have different layouts depending on the version
• Find the section that allows you to Configure the WiFi
• Locate the WiFi network that you want to connect your Arduino and PC / Laptop to
• Enter your network password
• Click Configure
• When this process has finished, re-connect your PC / Laptop to the same WiFi network
• Follow the steps for adding the necessary files to the Arduino here: Shell Script GitHub Repo
• When you have done that, open /Longboard/Longboard.ino in the Arduino IDE
• Change the values listed below under To Use
• Upload the sketch from the Arduino IDE onto the Arduino via USB or WiFi
• Wait for the LCD to light up and say "Starting up..."
• Wait for the LCD to show "To Start Click Button"
• Click the button attached to the Arduino
• Spin the wheel with the magnet attached to it
• The Distance and Speed should be displayed on the LCD
• Click the button again
• Information should be received back from the API via Shell and will be displayed on the LCD

To Use

• Change {{WHEEL_CIRCUMFERENCE}} to the Circumference of the longboard wheel
• Change {{MAGNET_NORMAL}} to the normal magnetic reading (Test out the Analog Hall Module separately first to find out what reading it normally gets - I find mine gets a normal reading of around 524/525 when no magnets are nearby)

How It Works

• A magnet is attached to the inside of the wheel of the longboard, with a magnetic sensor (Analog Hall) attached to the side of the board
• The user is prompted via the LCD to click the button attached to the Arduino to begin their skate
• When the button is clicked, the device is monitoring the analog value coming from the magnetic sensor
• The text file which sits on the Arduino's Linux file system is emptied for the new skate logs to be entered
• When the value spikes above a certain threshold, this signals that the wheel had made a full rotation
  • The circumference of the wheel (distance travelled from one revolution of the wheel) is added to the total distance
  • The current speed is also calculated by dividing the circumference of the wheel by the time it took for the full revolution
  • The current distance and speed is being updated and displayed to the user via the LCD
• The total amount of revolutions and the total speed (all revolutions accumulated) are incremented every 2 seconds
• On the 2 second mark, the average speed is calculated and logged into the text file speeds.txt
• This continues until the user clicks the button again to end their skate
• When the button is clicked, the total distance is prepended with "d_" and logged into speeds.txt
• A Shell Script which sits on the Linux file system is called by the command ash send_speeds.sh
• This script Shell Script GitHub Repo sends data to the API API GitHub Repo
• The response is then received back from the shell script containing the following data which was calculated by the API
  • The skate session ID number
  • The total length of the skate in seconds
  • The average speed throughout the session
  • The highest speed from the session
• This data is displayed to the user via the LCD
• The user is then prompted to press the button again to begin another skate session