Final Year Project Progress Report 17/18 (UNIKL BMI)

JOURNAL 2 WeMos D1 mini At the end of 2015 the hottest alternative seems to be the WeMos D1 mini. It has roughly the same width as a V2 NodeMCU devkit but at 34.2mm it is nearly a third shorter. It runs an ESP-8266EX MCU and provides 4MB flash. Its nine GPIO pins make the D1 mini suitable for a large IoT target audience. It supports both Arduino and NodeMCU. WeMos also sells a number of shields of equal size which allows to build nicely stackable units. The only downside for many may be that you have to solder the pins yourself. Each D1 mini comes with a pair of long and short female pins and a pair of normal pins. Some reports on the Internet claim that it can be a bit difficult to get proper drivers for the CH34x USB to serial chip on the D1 mini. That’s the same chip used by some of the cheap Arduino clones. Also, it’s obviously got a few pins less than the NodeMCU boards, check the pin map. On the other hand it’s also got a 5V out just like the LoLin V3. Cr

JOURNAL 1 RASPBERRY PI VS ARDUINO What is the difference between the two? An Arduino is a microcontroller motherboard. A microcontroller is a simple computer that can run one program at a time, over and over again. It is very easy to use. A Raspberry Pi is a general-purpose computer, usually with a Linux operating system, and the ability to run multiple programs. It is more complicated to use than an Arduino. What would I use each for? Arduino is best used for simple repetitive tasks: opening and closing a garage door, reading the outside temperature and reporting it to Twitter, driving a simple robot. Raspberry Pi is best used when you need a full-fledged computer: driving a more complicated robot, performing multiple tasks, doing intense calculations. A simple rule of thumb to decide? Think about what you want your project to do. If you can describe it with less than two ‘and’s, get an Arduino. If you need more than two ‘and’s,