NodeBots Day

You'll find our Installation notes & Start up script for our annual NodeBots Day Event

Welcome to Our annual BocaJS NodeBot Days event.

It's usually on the last saturday in July.

We will be using be using the johnny-five library to program our Arduino devices.

The basics

1. We'll flash our devices with the software for us to control it (Firmata)
2. We will add the johnny-five npm package (and another one)
3. We'll create our app and we'll be controlling our Arduino with NodeJS!!!

The Detailed explanation

The "trick" to "running JavaScript on our Arduino" is that "we don't" What we're doing is creating a program in our arduino that waits for commands from our laptops. We then use the johnny-five and other helpful libraries to send commands to the device. and the device does what we tell it.

Of course you tell johnny-five what to do using JavaScript, so in essense we tell the Arduino what to do with JavaScript

Instructions

1. Flash the Arduino For our ESP8266 D1 Mini Devices we'll be using the StandardFirmataWiFi Firmware.
   CHANGE the IP address to something unique and document it and of course set the Wifi SSID and Password correctly.
   

You can use the steps 1-4 in this guide to help http://www.instructables.com/id/ESP8266-Firmata-J5-NodeBot/
We've included the files you need (no need to download them) in the "ESP8266 Firmware" directory in this repo
OR you can ask someone to do it for you.

2. install the johnny-five and etherport libraries in your project (see NOTES & ERRORS below for any errors)

npm i johnny-five
npm i etherport-client

3. Skip the hassle and copy my johnnyFiveSample.js and edit it to your needs
   OR
   Create a new file and include the "johnny-five" and "etherport-client" libraries (see below) and code something wonderful!

const five = require("johnny-five"); 
const EtherPortClient = require("etherport-client").EtherPortClient;

YOU'RE DONE

You should get something like this: and your device's built in LED should be blinking

1531436035013 SerialPort Connecting to host:port: 192.168.29.50:3030
1531436035016 Connected Connecting to host:port: 192.168.29.50:3030
READY!
IT'S BLINKING!!!

NOW it's time for you to use the Johnny-Five Examples & API to make something wonderful!

NOTES & ERRORS

There are three directories in this repo that are per each platform (Windows, Mac, Linux).
If you have your computer setup correctly (or are just lucky that way) then you WON'T need them.
But each platform DOES have some issues in some situations so each directy has a trick to get you going.

I'll describe the issues on each platform and you can then choose to follow the steps within each directory if you need it.

• Windows - Python is hard to setup and when you "npm i johnny-five" you'll get an error. I've included the "node_modules" that you'll need.
• Mac - the issue isn't with johnny-five (if you have any). it's flashing the firmware on the arduino if you need to. I've include some drivers that may help.
• Linux - Similar to Windows. if you have any issues doing an "npm i johnny-five" then here I've included the "node_modules" directory that you'll need.

PINS on the ESP8266 D1 Mini

Some Extra notes about the ESP8266 D1 Mini's PINs. This are NOT important unless you run into an issue:

NOTE: nc = not connected

• 0 -> d3
• 1 -> nc
• 2 -> d4 = led
• 3 -> nc
• 4 -> d2
• 5 -> d1
• 6 -> watchdog(4) reset
• 7 -> watchdog(4) reset
• 8 -> watchdog(4) reset
• 9 -> watchdog(4) reset
• 10 -> nc
• 11 -> watchdog(4) reset
• 12 -> d7 low, d6 sporadic
• 13 -> d0 high, d7 sporadic
• 14 -> d0 high, d6 low, d7 low, d5 sporadic
• 15 -> d0 high, d8 sporadic
• 16 -> d0
• 17 -> nc
• 18 -> nc
• 19 -> nc
• 20 -> stack trace and pin-based(2) reset
• 21 -> stack trace and watchdog(4) reset
• 22 -> stack trace and watchdog(4) reset
• 23 -> stack trace and watchdog(4) reset
• 24 -> nc
• 25 -> nc
• 26 -> nc
• 27 -> nc
• 28 -> nc
• 29 -> nc