Humboldt MCU Opportunity Tech Companies Recruiting IoT Developers

One of my goals for this blog is to identify ways for Humboldt microcontroller (MCU) users to earn money and to try to highlight those money-making opportunities for people who are interested in them. It will help Humboldt people and the regional economy if we can increase the number of Humboldt MCU-related paid projects and jobs.

IoT concept graphic (from comsoc.org)

Wired.com had a short July 25 article, "Tech Giants Begin Recruiting for the Next Big Platform Wars", which talked about a technology-economy trend that Humboldt MCU people should be aware of and should look at as an opportunity for projects or jobs. The article says that the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to be a huge revenue opportunity for MCU developers, the next big platform. The killer app for the IoT hasnt come over the horizon yet, and there is no clear leader among companies competing to cash in on the billions of dollars expected to be spent on embedded computing systems and other IoT products and services. Even though no company has a firmly established lead, those organizations who want to have a chance in this race are hiring technical people, including MCU developers, to create and improve their organizations products. As Wired puts it:

Microcontroller (from ti.com)

"The Internet of Things is still young, but it’s real. There are already dozens of internet-connected devices available, ranging from home-automation tools to wearable fitness trackers. And it’s about to start growing at an even faster pace. According a new survey...17 percent of the world’s software developers are already working on Internet of Things projects. Another 23 percent are planning to start an IoT project within the next six months. The most popular devices? Security and surveillance products, connected cars, environmental sensors and smart lights and other office automation tools. The world’s largest tech companies are already in fierce competition to attract developers to their respective connected device platforms. After all, the winners of these new platform wars will define the future of computing."

Two previous technology-economy trend platforms early stages that employed a lot of developers were when businesses started having websites on the Internet and when the iPhone catalyzed a huge market for smartphone apps. New sustainable trends have a tipping point where the trend actually becomes an important economic factor and creates a significant amount of ongoing sales and reliable employment. The IoT appears to be approaching that tipping point, and the Wired article is saying the trend is sustainable and there will be a large number of steady employment opportunities for IoT developers. The Barrons.com article "Silicon Labs Tuned In for Upside" phrased it this way:

"...we dont think IoT for Silicon Labs will turn out to be an overextended hype cycle. Connected/smart-home adoption has parallels to smartphones in 2008, where developers created unanticipated high-value applications on a platform to drive rapid adoption. From that perspective, 50 billion IoT devices by 2020 does not seem unreasonable."

Other recent articles about MCUs, embedded computing and the IoT have also talked about MCU-developer opportunities in the upcoming months and years. So the question at this point is, how can Humboldt developers get involved with the IoT platform to make money? Ill talk more about this topic in some of the future posts on this blog. But for now, Humboldt MCU developers and users might consider doing some or all of the following activities.

1. Learn a lot about the IoT and microcontrollers and keep up-to-date on these two topics.
2. Learn more about the IoT and MCUs by designing and building unique projects and document them online.
3. Use the internet to document and promote your IoT and MCU knowledge and skill.
4. Teach a class about Arduinos, MCUs or the IoT.
5. Build and promote interesting MCU / IoT products and sell them online.
6. Identify and reach out to knowledgeable and interesting people who are relatively well-connected in the IoT and MCU communities.
7. Use craigslist and other online developer job boards to look for MCU / IoT job or project opportunities and to advertise your availability for MCU / IoT projects and employment.

All the above activities can be done without participating in any of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meetings or collaborative MCU projects.

But the above money-making activities can also be done with people who are active in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. In my experience, its often more fun and more interesting to work on projects or activities with other people who have complementary or similar knowledge and interests. If youre interested in discussing any of the above IoT money making opportunities, come to the next MCU meeting. Or email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com.

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Spark io Raises 4 9 Million Lessons For Humboldt County

Spark Core

Spark.io just raised $4.9 million to hire more employees, increase the usefulness and user base of its cloud-based Spark OS platform, and increase its market presence and penetration. Microcontrollers (MCUs) were a key component of Sparks first product, Spark Core. Spark Core would be useless without the MCU, and knowing how to use and program the MCU was key to the early success of the product.

Can Humboldt County learn anything from the Spark.io story and replicate Sparks success? Yes, it can. Heres why and how.

Humboldts small town atmosphere, access to a beautiful natural environment, and the isolated, pastoral landscape which inspires creativity combine to provide a quality of life that attracts highly talented people to the area. However, Humboldt doesnt have a national or global reputation as a high-profile innovation community or a thriving high-tech business ecosystem. This means Humboldt MCU developers and entrepreneurs need to focus on the right things to be financially sustainable and have a chance for Spark-like success.

The highly talented people in Humboldt County who focus on the following six principles put themselves in a position to succeed like Spark did.

1. Engage in emerging technologies and sectors. (While the focus is on long term technologies, be conscious of low entry cost opportunities which take advantage of short term trends. Italics edit on July 20.)
2. Focus on interesting platforms that have high market potential.
3. Build a core network of people, both in and outside of Humboldt County, who are passionate and highly skilled and are focusing those passionate skills on developing disruptive innovations in emerging technologies and sectors.
4. Have a physical presence both in Humboldt and in a leading US location for the subject technology or sector.
5. Use Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Tindie and other appropriate high-profile sites to launch products, determine mass appeal, gain funding, gain visibility.
6. Build a network of support resources that allows long term serious product and platform development and insightful pivoting.

Only a small percentage of independent developers and startups who build and launch products and

companies will create a sustainable revenue stream, and even fewer will be as successful as Spark has been so far. However, talented people who successfully focus on the above six principles have a much greater chance of success than those who dont leverage those principles.

If youre interested in the Spark story and want more background, check out the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), TechCrunch (TC) and BusinessInsider (BI). According to the WSJ, "Spark.io “empowers engineers” by letting them create and improve products without relying on technology, features and access afforded to them by large companies...Having recently moved his

Spark Core breadboard circuit

business from Minneapolis to San Francisco, Mr. Supalla plans to use Spark.io’s freshly-raised capital on hiring, community-building and outreach to developers, and to manufacture and sell its Spark kits and operating system." TC says, "Today, the company has announced a third product called Spark OS, which allows developers to integrate their projects with an open-source OS, compatible with iOS and Android...The project shifted from the Spark Socket...to the Spark Core and the Spark Cloud...“Our greatest challenge is the shifting landscape,” said Supalla. “The IoT is a big deal, and companies around the world are trying to figure out how they play in it. The market changes every week when someone launches an initiative, but luckily we move quick." Sparks team is currently 12 people, but will, BI says, "...grow to about 20-25 people within the next few months." Per BI, the Spark CEO had "targeted makers and the growing hobbyist community centered on building things with technology, but...was surprised to discover that customers wanted to use Spark to deploy across thousands of devices for work and enterprise purposes...The time and energy it takes to build a product from scratch, we can potentially cut off 6-9 months off development time and millions of dollars from R&D so you’re not starting from zero."

Im going to write a weekly blog post that follows up on opportunities for Humboldt County microcontroller users. The posts will focus first on the above six principles, then will explore emerging products and technologies, MCU-relevant entrepreneurial success news, and other topics that may help Humboldt microcontroller users achieve high-profile success, or at least long term sustainable profit.

If you have comments about Spark-like opportunities in Humboldt County, or if you are interested in expanding or strengthening the community of Humboldt microcontrollers users, send an email to me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com.

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Arduino And littleBits

So yesterdays post was about littleBits and the new cloudBits that seems to make it pretty easy for littleBits to play with the Internet of Things. Writing that post made me curious about the combination of Arduino and littleBits.

Arduino-At-Heart module for littleBits

A TechCrunch article from May 2014 covered the Arduino-At-Heart module for littleBits and the Arduino Starter Bundle. TechCrunch explains the collaboration between these two tech ecosystems this way:

"The world of littleBits...can now play friendly with Arduino. If you’re not familiar with littleBits, it might help to think of it as a DIY Electronics kit mashed up with LEGO. Each “bit” is an individual electronic component, like a speaker, or a light sensor, or a blinky LED. Snap them together, and you can do all sorts of cool stuff — no programming required...That “no programming required” point has always been one of littleBits’ biggest strengths; it meant that anyone could start putting stuff together, pretty much by accident. Alas, up until now, “no programming required” also meant “no programming allowed”...The littleBits idea is great — but once a particularly enthusiastic user hit the limits of what their kit could do, the next step (learning to

use a standalone Arduino board, which meant also learning proper circuitry, soldering, etc.) was suddenly a pretty big one...This morning, littleBits is introducing an Arduino module into the mix. It’ll snap right into place — no soldering required — just like the other littleBits modules, with one big difference: it’s programmable. You get the programmability of an Arduino, without having to learn the myriad other prerequisite skills. You jack into it via the onboard microUSB port, upload your programming via the standard Arduino IDE, and all of your littleBits modules fall in line."

The Engadget May 2014 coverage of the littleBits Arduino module rollout talks about some of the advantages of this module:

"...it also opens the door to interaction with your computer. Since the Arduino module has USB support built-in, you can create Etch-A-Sketches, Pong games and other programs that have LittleBits and your PC working in harmony. Rothman adds that many existing Arduino projects should work with only a few slight tweaks to pin assignments."

Arduino Starter Bundle for littleBits

This Instructables shows what was previously involved with adding Arduino capabilities to the littleBits synth kit before the Arduino-littleBits modules became available.

To learn more about the littleBits Arduino module, check out the webpage for that module. If you want to know more about the littleBits Arduino starter kit, heres a link to that webpage.

At the next meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group, Ill ask how many people there have worked with littleBits. If no one has, it would be an interesting exercise to get a few littleBits modules and see what all the options are for combining them with traditional microcontroller projects. If you have littleBits modules and are coming to the August 7 MCU meeting, please bring them to the meeting. Thanks!

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Mutli Phase Humboldt MCU Garden Project

As yesterdays Humboldt Laser Harp post indicated, the microcontroller (MCU) music group project is well under way. So now Im thinking about how to get the second group project started in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group, one involving gardening.

MCU and sensors for potted plant

Several people whove been at Humboldt Makers Group meetings or the MCU group meetings have said theyre interested in MCUs and gardening. And it seems like lots of other people in Humboldt County might have an interest in ways to improve gardening. There are lots of organic gardeners in the area, and agriculture has been part of the Humboldt economy for much of the areas history. So Ive decided to outline a multi-phase approach to a collaborative project focused on MCU gardening. And a significant part of this collaborative project will be identifying and reaching out to Humboldt people who are involved in gardening or agriculture and might be interested in sharing their knowledge and / or participating in this project.

MCU and hydroponics

Two long term goals I have for the MCU gardening is to be involved with a successful hydroponics system and a successful aquaponics system. There are lots of websites and projects on the Internet that tell a person how to do hydroponics or aquaponics, but Im an engineer, and I like to understand what Im doing. Plus I dont have a lot of money to spend on these projects. So my preferred approach to MCU gardening is to start out small, and get more complex after I understand the technology and green thumb art involved with each part of the MCU garden project.

Below are proposed MCU garden project phases. If we get the right people involved with the project and if we can secure funding of some type for the project, we can move very quickly through the phases or work on more than one phase at a time. So if you know people whod like to participate in this project or know of money that can be used for purchasing electronic components and supplies for this, please contact me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com. These are the proposed phases for the Humboldt MCU Garden group project:

MCU and aquaponics (from dzbc.org.cn)

1. Grow one plant indoor in soil.
2. Grow four to eight plants indoor in soil.
3. Grow four types of plants outdoor in soil.
4. Grow one tray of plants indoors in hydroponic system.
5. Grow three types of plants indoors in hydroponic system.
6. Grow one type of plant in aquaponics system.
7. Grow three types of plants in aquaponics system.

Phase 1 of the Humboldt MCU Garden project is simple and low cost and will help us learn the basic principles of MCU gardening. Phases 2 through 7 can easily be redefined as we get more people involved in the project and we learn more about what we dont know about MCU gardening.

The first draft design of the Humboldt MCU Garden project includes:

1. One type of plant.

   

   LEDs and lettuce

1. Lettuce is my first choice, partly because of whats being done with optimized lettuce mcu gardening in Japan and other places (see my blog post "LED Lettuce, The HydroTower And LED Humboldt Hydroponics.") We might be able to find useful data about optimum growing conditions for lettuce (light wavelengths, relative humidity, nutrients, temperature, etc.).
2. If other people who want to participate in the Humboldt MCU Garden project prefer to grow something other than lettuce and have information about good growing conditions for that plant, Im willing to switch from lettuce.
2. Growing container.
1. The type of growing container probably wont be too critical for Phase 1. Mainly something large enough to hold the soil and drainage system that will provide good growing conditions for the plant.
2. A five gallon plastic bucket is one option, especially if we can find a free one.
3. We need to figure out where the container with the plant and MCU Garden system will be kept. It seems like Phase 1 should mostly be indoors because that means we dont need to have a rain-proof system. But having a Phase 1 container thats easily movable would be nice so we can roll or carry the container outside on nice days.
3. Growing condition sensors
1. Light sensor -- very important so we get good photosynthesis (and good respiration?).

   

   One type of light sensor (from Adafruit)

2. Soil moisture sensor -- very important because too dry means dead plant and too wet means dead plant.
3. Temperature sensor -- important for growth, especially during Humboldt winters. Temperature will be less critical for plants like lettuce, but very critical for plants like tomatoes.
4. Relative humidity sensor (RH) -- RH wont be critical for lettuce growth in Phase 1, but it will be critical as the projects future phases try to minimize water usage and as we try to grow RH-sensitive plants like redwood trees.
4. LEDs for indoor gardening
1. RGB LEDs will let us adjust the light if we want
2. Red and Blue LEDs appear to be used for optimum lettuce growth.
3. Research and / or people who know plant growth lighting and LEDs are required.
5. MCU to gather and record sensor data
1. Which MCU we use for the Humboldt MCU Garden project depends partly on who wants to be involved with the project.
1. If we can get a sponsor for the Humboldt MCU Garden project, such as an MCU manufacturer or distributor, Ill use whichever MCU they manufacture or distribute!
2. If no MCU manufacturer or distributor sponsor can be recruited, the MCU will be determined by whoever takes the lead on programming for the project.
1. If Ed takes the lead, well probably use a Texas Instruments MCU.
2. If Josiah takes the lead, or if Im filling that role, it will likely be an Arduino or Arduino-compatible.
3. If someone other than Josiah, Ed or me volunteers to lead the garden-variety programming for this project, that person can choose the MCU type.
6. Type of soil
1. Determining what type of soil to use will require research or a project member who has good experience with growing plants indoors in containers.
2. The type of soil will likely affect other gardening aspects such as what nutrients we need to add and the soil moisture measurement.
7. Fertilizer and trace nutrients to add
1. Fertilizer and trace nutrients is another topic that will require research or a project member experienced in the art.
2. Might want to evaluate whether pH or some other batch or continuous sensor (pH? nutrient analysis?) should be used to track nutrient levels.
8. Data gathering and analysis
1. There are no specific requirements for data gathering and analysis for Phase 1 since its such a simple system. However, part of the purpose of Phase 1 is to learn how to effectively monitor growing conditions, so it makes sense to establish good gardening data practices (GGDP) for those growing conditions and different types of sensors.
   
2. As part of my goal to get Humboldt people more involved in the Internet of Things (IoT), it would be good to use services like open data bases and IFTTT (If This Then That).
3. One gardening data goal is to use that data to automatically track, alarm and interpret the data generated by the sensors. It would be nice to generate online graphs and have alarms sent out by IFTTT when growing conditions reach or approach setpoints where action needs to be taken.

The above outline give you an idea of what I think Phase 1 of the Humboldt MCU Garden group project should look like. Next steps for me to get this project rolling are (1) talk to and try to recruit a couple people whove expressed an interest in MCU gardening, (2) promote the project to other people in the Humboldt Makers and MCU group and try to recruit some of them, (3) develop a one-page MCU project proposal that I can use to pitch to potential sponsors, and (4) continue to do research for Phase 1 topics like sensors, nutrients and soil types.

If you are interested in this project or know someone who might be, please email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com or come to an MCU group meeting or Humboldt Makers meeting in the near future.

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