Getting Started with the ESP-8266 & MQTT

This workshop is intended to provide users with a an easy entry into the world of embedded electronics and dip their toes in the home automation waters.

The workshop is suitable for high-schoolers upwards (although late primary school may be able to follow along with some assistance).

All electronics are breadboarded, so that parts can be swapped out as your experiments progress.

To get started, look at the Prerequisites file in the tutorials directory.

Once you are set up, progress to the Intro instructions. Further projects will be added in the future.

Prerequisites

Objectives

  • Set up the development environment

Introduction

A 1 or 2-3 hours workshop to teach the basic skills required for further experimentations

Objectives

  • Learn about microcontrollers
  • Learn how to prototype on breadboards
  • Learn about PWM (2 hour version)
  • Learn about event-based programming
  • programatically operate a buzzer (2 hour version)
  • Communicate with an MQTT broker over Wifi
  • Coordinate MQTT interactions using NodeRed