The OurWeather STEM kit is a good example of the use of Grove connectors in STEM projects.
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.
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 laid 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.
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.
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.
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 the 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.
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.
The 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 with the
OurWeather STEM station!
I find that the kids are constantly refreshing the weather page to see what the wind speed and temperature are and have a 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.
Overall, this was a fun build that took a total of about a leisurely weekend to complete. The OurWeather Kit hardware and software are well thought out and easy to assemble.
SwitchDoc labs delivered exactly the experience we were hoping for in the OurWeather Stem Kit!
