We believe you remember the probe in latest blockbuster “Interstellar”, which travelled light years to search for a new habitable world for humanity, a star with the mild temperature, liquid water and plenty of sunshine.
Have you ever made such kind of environment probes, especially wireless ones? We got you right here.
Event theme: Share your Stalker application demos
How to participate: Post your Stalker application demos to forum, including Name & Description & Libraries(Programs) & 3-5 pictures
Duration: Submission - Dec 15-31, 2014; Selection – Jan 1-2, 2015
Awards: 2 selective candidates will be awarded 1 of 2 as below.
Package 1
• LoNet - Mini GSM/GPRS/GPS Breakout
• Grove – Temperature & Humidity Sensor (High-Accuracy & Mini)
• Transparent Waterproof Seal Pot for Stalker V3
Package 2
• Wifi Bee V2.0
• Grove - Digital Light Sensor
• 1W Solar Panel 80X100
• Transparent Waterproof Seal Pot for Stalker V3
Winners’ products will also be presented on Seeed Blog, Wiki, Recipe, Facebook & Twitter.
Should there be any enquiries, please reach Jacket Chen via [email protected]
About Seeeduino Stalker
Seeeduino Stalker is an Arduino compatible main board which helps collect data in an outdoor environment. It will be upgraded to an independent ecological system while plugging a solar panel, as well as wireless connection device while using with GPS, Bluetooth or Wifi Bees.
Product page: seeedstudio.com/depot/Seeedu … ?cPath=6_7
Wireless Agricultural Monitoring Product. I use and sell the Stalker as a core component in my CS3 system for monitoring, weather conditions, soil Moisture, and irrigation systems. camalie.net/html/cs3prod.htm
Here is a picture of an early prototype with 3 Watermark Soil moisture Sensors and a temp sensor attached.
Here’s a soil moisture tension plot of data captured by a stalker in a Napa vineyard using the Watermark sensors shown above. The downward transient shows the wetting of the soil this fall after the start of the rains in Napa California. Note that the plot shows how long it takes the water to penetrate from 12" to 24" to 36" depth.
Here’s a picutre of a set of 6 nodes ready for deployment at a vineyard in St. Helena Ca. Note the larger box needed to accomodate an arduino shield and 3AA batteries.
The reasons I have chosen the Stalker over a variety of other platforms I have looked at are:
Xbee Wireless Support/socket/ regulated power.
Arduino compatibility and support for arduino shields/Arduino IDE programming
Solar power supply, Low power Low drop out voltage regulator. 3AA NiMH battery compatible. 5V in.
Low cost weather proof enclosure and solar panel available for it.
Low cost of the Stalker board itself. No USB interface burden in the cost.
Uartsbee low cost USB interface available for programming
To make the Stalker useful requires a lot of system infrastructure which you don’t hear much about. Plugging an Arduino shield into the Stalker with some sensors is only the first step. The data then needs to be formatted and sent through a wireless link to an internet gateway which forwards the data on to a web server which stores the data and makes it available for viewing or processes it directly sending alerts or control actions. CS3 includes all of these components and is being used by growers of grapes today.
CS3 is noteworthy in that it is all open source. The code can be found at camalie.net/html/cs3/Downloads.htm It includes Stalker arduino code, Gateway code and Server Code. It builds on open source code from others, most notably RRDTools, drraw, sqlite, arduino and XBee libraries. It has NO dependencies on Proprietary code from the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Adobe or Apple. Proprietary products with similar architecture are WINK and IRIS for home automation.
If you prefer not to build your own web service infrastructure you are welcome to use a Camalie Networks open data web server at no cost. Just do an http get() with a networkID, NodeID and your data in the URL to [email protected]. drraw is an open source front end for RRDTools much like Cacti but simpler.
If you want to bypass the building of the gateway they are available from Camalie Networks. Its just a basic Linux computer with an XBee radio wired up to a serial port.
Awesome. My project is much less ambitious. Picked up the Stalker during Black Friday sales due to it’s solar panel. I’m going to have it as the base monitor station for outdoor weather sensors. The link to the inside house master ( a Raspberry Pi) is going to be via the inexpensive nRF24L01+ boards you see everywhere.
Plan to be able to monitor temp/humid and battery of Stalker to begin with but will add wind/rain/etc… as time goes on. It’s a nice board. Docs could be better but I got it working.
