Dupré Family SwitchDoc Labs OurWeather STEM Station Build
June 26, 2016
Editors Note: We were tickled to receive this guest blog by the Dupre family. The Dupre family did a great job. Thank you Rene, Brigette, Suzette and Dylan. The OurWeather STEM kit is a good example of the use of Grove connectors in STEM projects.
One day while perusing Kickstarter in search of Arduino and Raspberry PI projects, I stumbled upon a project for the “Our Weather” weather station you can build with your kids. I was immediately intrigued as I could not stomach another blinky LED kit being passed off as an achievement in STEM teaching. So, I invested in a weather starter kit, which came on time with no delays – something rare with KS projects. From the get go, you can see that the circuit is well layed out and easy to setup and use. The kit came with a Raspberry PI zero but it is not used to run the station. In fact, the entire station runs from a single integrated board that connects to all the sensors and is complete with software.
The kit arrived and Brigette, Dylan, and Suzette printed the OurWeather Assembly and Operations Manual, laid out all the parts on our kitchen table and discussed the use and function of each one. Everything was very straightforward and easy to understand.
We quickly completed mounting the sensors to the brackets and poles. But, the poles are only about two feet tall so they needed to be mounted to something. Our solution was to attach the pole to a fiber glass tree/shrub stake using metal radiator style clamps and then attached that against our backyard fence using metal straps.
Now, there is a lot of science behind the correct locations to mount these sensors in order to achieve the most accurate readings. If you are interested in that, you need to study the guidelines. For me, this was about having fun with the kids, so we did not worry about it too much. I wanted some protection from the brutal sun so we chose a semi-shaded location for the wind vane, anemometer, and rain bucket.
Our next step, was to figure out how to put the sensitive electronics outside. A quick post on the SwitchDoc forum led to a recommendation to use a waterproof box made by BUD Industries. They come in a variety of sizes and models so it was hard to decide. I wound up using the Bud Industries NBF-32306 which is just large and deep enough to hold everything and not be an eyesore.
One note about the OurWeather forum, it is a great place to post any questions you have during the build. Responses made sense and the longest I waited for was about a day.
Here is the box mounted up on my shade awning, away from the sun. Luckily, I had a power receptacle to the right, already wired and ready. I 
always wondered what I would use that plug for anyway. After all, it’s 8 feet up under an eave which I can’t reach! OK, back to the build. A couple of things about the box. It comes completely sealed except for the door that opens in the front. So, you will need to drill a hole for the wires.
My cut was not pretty, but I realized the hole had to be large enough to accommodate two RJ-45 jacks, micro-USB and the temperature/humidity sensor wire. Thus, I had to work it with the drill to enlarge my original cut.
Our next challenge was mounting the circuit board in the box. The kit came with a mounting board that we figured we could epoxy to the box. But there is a bulge located dead center in the box, which kept the board from lying flat.
My first thought was to try to find plastic to lay around it to stabilize the board. But, I realized, we had no perfectly sized plastic to use. The answer was painfully obvious, but not at the time! Instead, we shaved it down with a Dremel tool.
Mix some glue…
Apply to the back of the circuit board enclosure…
And this is how it looks inside the box…
Notice that I added left angle micro-USB adapter in order to make the cabling fit; otherwise, you would need to use a larger box. After making the rest of the connections, I glued the OLED display to the inside top cover. The hardest part was having to hold it still for 5 minutes while the epoxy hardened, but I like how tidy it looks. Here is the completed box before mounting.
Once the unit was secure in the box, we were able to plug it in and follow the setup procedure to link it to our WiFi, naming the station, and changing the administrative passwords. One piece of information you will need is your altitude in meters. Luckily, the power of Google located that information quickly. The overall setup procedure is straightforward and well document in the assembly guide.
For the network savy, I would recommend setting a static IP address in your router for the weather station or you will need to scan it on your network to find it every time the IP address rotates. This can be a pain as the weather station web page needs the latest IP address to query the station.
Last step in the build is to mount the box and connect the rest of the wires. Here is the mounted box…
Notice that I tied knots on the cables inside the box to help relieve any stress that might occur if the wires get snagged. Also, the box sits a few millimeters off of the post, so I was 
able to route wires underneath it. The hole was larger than the wires and had to be sealed to avoid hornets making a nest inside. So, I used caulking mixed with silicone to do that.
Here is what it looks like from another angle…
With that, we are up and running.
I find that the kids are constantly refreshing the weather page to see what the wind speed and temperature are and have lot of interest in seeing the sensors work. I am sure they will be tracking the rain gauge with our first storm in the fall. As a project, we will track the barometric pressure to see if it can assist in predicting the day’s weather.
Conclusion
Overall, this was a fun build that took a total of about a leisurely weekend to complete. The hardware and software is well thought out and easy to assemble. SwitchDoc labs delivered exactly the experience we were hoping for…although there are some blinky lights on the circuit board just to make it feel like a STEM project. 😉
