BeagleBone: Creative Projects for Hobbyists

Learn to build amazing robotic projects using the powerful BeagleBone Black.

About This Book

• Push your creativity to the limit through complex, diverse, and fascinating projects
• Develop applications with the BeagleBone Black and open source Linux software
• Sharpen your expertise in making sophisticated electronic devices

Who This Book Is For

This Learning Path is aimed at hobbyists who want to do creative projects that make their life easier and also push the boundaries of what can be done with the BeagleBone Black. This Learning Path’s projects are for the aspiring maker, casual programmer, and budding engineer or tinkerer. You’ll need some programming knowledge, and experience of working with mechanical systems to get the complete experience from this Learning Path.

What You Will Learn

• Set up and run the BeagleBone Black for the first time
• Get to know the basics of microcomputing and Linux using the command line and easy kernel mods
• Develop a simple web interface with a LAMP platform
• Prepare complex web interfaces in JavaScript and get to know how to stream video data from a webcam
• Find out how to use a GPS to determine where your sailboat is, and then get the bearing and distance to a new waypoint
• Use a wind sensor to sail your boat effectively both with and against the wind
• Build an underwater ROV to explore the underwater world
• See how to build an autonomous Quadcopter

In Detail

BeagleBone is a microboard PC that runs Linux. It can connect to the Internet and run OSes such as Android and Ubuntu. You can transform this tiny device into a brain for an embedded application or an endless variety of electronic inventions and prototypes.

This Learning Path starts off by teaching you how to program the BeagleBone. You will create introductory projects to get yourselves acquainted with all the nitty gritty. Then we’ll focus on a series of projects that are aimed at hobbyists like you and encompass the areas of home automation and robotics. With each project, we’ll teach you how to connect several sensors and an actuator to the BeagleBone Black. We’ll also create robots for land, sea, and water. Yes, really!

The books used in this Learning Path are:

1. BeagleBone Black Cookbook
2. BeagleBone Home Automation Blueprints
3. Mastering BeagleBone Robotics

Style and approach

This practical guide transforms complex and confusing pieces of technology to become accessible with easy- to-succeed instructions. Through clear, concise examples, you will quickly get to grips with the core concepts needed to develop home automation applications with the BeagleBone Black.

Table of Contents

1. Module 1
1. Setting Up for the First Time
2. Basic Programming Recipes
3. Physical Computing Recipes Using JavaScript, the BoneScript Library, and Python
4. Exploring GNU/Linux Recipes Using Bash, Autotools, Debugger, and systemd
5. Basic Programming Recipes with the Linux Kernel
6. Run Faster, Run Real Time
7. Applied Recipes – Sound, Picture, and Video
8. The Internet of Things
9. The Black in Outer Space

2. Module 2
1. Dangerous Gas Sensors
2. Ultrasonic Parking Assistant
3. Aquarium Monitor
4. Google Docs Weather Station
5. WhatsApp Laundry Room Monitor
6. Baby Room Sentinel
7. Facebook Plant Monitor
8. Intrusion Detection System
9. Twitter Access Control System with Smart Card and RFID
10. A Lights Manager with a TV Remote Controller
11. A Wireless Home Controller with Z-Wave

3. Module 3
1. Preparing the BeagleBone Black
2. Building a Basic Tracked Vehicle
3. Adding Sensors to Your Tracked Vehicle
4. Vision and Image Processing
5. Building a Robot that Can Walk
6. A Robot that Can Sail
7. Using GPS for Navigation
8. Measuring Wind Speed – Integrating Analog Sensors
9. An Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle
10. A Quadcopter
11. An Autonomous Quadcopter