micro:bit – Works as the microprocessor

MuseLab micro:bit WiFi Booster – Allows the micro:bit to connect to the Internet through WiFi (Figure 8-1)

Three-pin generic connection cable – Allows you to connect the Wearic pressure sensor to the WiFi booster. you will get with the WiFi booster.

micro USB cable – Allows you to flash code onto the micro:bit

Push the micro:bit to the edge connector of the WiFi booster.

Connect the Wearic textile pressure sensor to the P1 I/O port (you can use other ports too and update the code accordingly). The P1 I/O port has three pins, GND, 3.3V, and SIGNAL. The textile pressure sensor should connect between 3.3V and the SIGNAL pins. Then connect GND and SIGNAL through a 10 KΩ resistor to pull-down the pin (Figure 8-2).

Now slide the power switch on the “multi-voltage power shield” to the ON position.

<3 million messages/year

~8,200 messages/day

Standard – For use at a commercial, government, or other organizations

Academic – For use in teaching and academic research at a degree-granting institution

Student – For use in conjunction with courses offered at a degree-granting institution

Home – For personal use only. Not for government, academic, commercial, or other organizational uses

Go to https://thingspeak.com/.

Click the Sign Up button at the top right of the page (Figure 8-3).

Click the Continue button (Figure 8-5).

You will get an error message about your email address. That’s normal. First, click the checkbox next to the “Use this email for my MathWorks account,” and then click again the Continue button (Figure 8-6).

You will get the following message. First, check if you have received an email from MathWorks. If yes, in the email, click the Verify your email button (Figure 8-7).

Then go to ThingSpeak and click the Continue button (Figure 8-8).

If not, click the “Send me the email again” link. If that doesn’t work for you, contact the customer support by clicking the “Customer Support” link (Figure 8-9).

After successfully creating and verifying your account, you will get a message saying “Your profile was verified” (Figure 8-10).

Now you will get the “Finish your Profile” page (Figure 8-11). You should provide a user id and a password. Then click the Continue button.

Now your account is completely created, and you have logged in to ThingSpeak. Click the OK button (Figure 8-12).

Choose the option “Personal, non-commercial projects,” and then click the OK button (Figure 8-13).

In the ThingSpeak My Channels page (Channels ➤ My Channels), click the New Channel button (Figure 8-14).

Scroll down the page and click the Save Channel button (Figure 8-16).

The channel has been created and displayed in the My Channels page (Figure 8-17).

Now click the channel name (Chapter_8). You can see a blank chart (Figure 8-18). Don’t worry. In the next few sections, you will write and flash the code onto the micro:bit for sending data.

In the Editor controls, click the cogwheel icon (Figure 8-19).

In the drop-down menu, click Extensions (Figure 8-20).

In the Extensions page, type muselab (Figure 8-21) and click the Search button.

The Muselab wifi-shield extension will show on the search result (Figure 8-22). Now click it to add to your project.

It will take some time to download the extension to your project. Once downloaded, it can be found in the toolbox. The Muselab wifi-shield extension creates six toolbox drawers (Figure 8-23).

Among them, we will be using the MuseIoT toolbox drawer to build our code (Figure 8-24).

Open the MuseIoT toolbox drawer. Drag out the Initialize Muselab WiFi Booster block onto the workspace, and place it into the on start block (Figure 8-25).

Open the Basic toolbox drawer. Drag out the pause (ms) block onto the workspace, and place it into the on start block under the Initialize Muselab WiFi Booster and OLED block. Then in the pause (ms) block, type in 5000 (Figure 8-26). This will tell micro:bit to wait for 5 seconds and execute the next block.

Open the MuseIoT toolbox drawer. Drag out the Set wifi block onto the workspace, and place it into the on start block after the pause (ms) block (Figure 8-27).

Type in SSID and password of the WiFi network you are going to connect with. If you have a home WiFi network, the SSID and password can be found on the router (Figure 8-28).

After filling SSID and the password, the Set wifi block looks like that in Figure 8-29.

Open the MuseIoT toolbox drawer. Drag out the Send Thingspeak block onto the workspace, and place it into the forever block (Figure 8-30).

Find the Write API Key in your channel settings page (Figure 8-31).

In the key* textbox, type in the ThingSpeak Write API Key (Figure 8-32).

Open the Pins toolbox drawer. Drag out the analog read pin block onto the workspace and place it into the field1 of the Send Thingspeak block. Then choose P1 from the drop-down menu (Figure 8-33).

Open the Basic toolbox drawer. Drag out the pause (ms) block onto the workspace and place it into the on start block under the Send Thingspeak block. In the pause (ms) block, type 20000 (Figure 8-34). This will tell micro:bit to wait for 20 seconds and continue with the next cycle.

In the project name box, type in a name for your project (first delete the default name, “Untitled”) (Figure 8-36). The new name of the project will be updated in your browser’s local cache.

Click the Download button at the bottom of the editor page. A hex file will download to your computer (Figure 8-37).

Drag and drop the hex file onto the micro:bit drive. The LED on the back of your micro:bit flashes during the transfer. Once this has completed, the micro:bit will automatically restart and start executing your code.

Go to your ThingSpeak channel and click the Private View tab. You can see the pressure data is coming from the micro:bit. Now using your fingers, apply some pressure onto the Wearic textile pressure sensor. You can see the pressure values get increased (Figure 8-38).