Temperature Monitoring

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Overview

Within this PicoBricks tutorial we're going to use the to sense the temperature of the room you're in. The temperature is then outputted to the .

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What you'll learn

How to sense the temperature of a room through code
How to output the temperature to the OLED screen

What you'll need

PicoBricks Kit
PicoBricks Brick IDE
MicroUSB to USB cable
Laptop or tablet for coding

Key words

Temperature sensor

A temperature sensor is a little part that measures how warm or cold it is around it, then turns that into a number your code can read. As the room heats up or cools down, the number changes too.

Real-world example: Like the thermometer that tells you if you've got a temperature when you're poorly, a temperature sensor measures the warmth around it and gives your code a number to work with.

OLED screen

An OLED screen is a small display that shows words, numbers and pictures from your code. On some kits it's labelled the "LED display", but it's the same little screen.

Real-world example: Like the small screen on a fitness watch showing your steps, an OLED screen can show a score or a countdown.

Forever loop

A forever loop repeats its instructions again and again without ever stopping (until you switch off or reset). It's perfect for anything you want to keep happening over and over.

Real-world example: Like a clock's second hand that keeps ticking round and round, a forever loop keeps running the same steps over and over.

Set up your PicoBricks

Open your favourite web browser. We recommend either Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. Type ide.picobricks.com into the address bar.
Connect the PicoBricks board to your computer using the USB cable.
Connect the PicoBricks board to the Brick IDE by selecting the Connection button at the top of the code area.

The PicoBricks Brick IDE coding environment

Build the code

Select Basic. Select a PicoBricks block and drop it in the code area.
Select Loops. Select a forever block and snap it to the PicoBricks block.
Select Display. Select a Clear Screen Buffer block and snap it within the forever block.
Select Display. Select a Write Text to Screen block and snap it to the Clear Screen Buffer block. Change the X value to 15, the Y value to 10 and PicoBricks to Temperature:.
Select Display. Select a Write Text to Screen block and snap it to the Write Text to Screen X 15 Y 10 "Temperature:" block. Change the X value to 55 and the Y value to 30.
Select Bricks. Select a Read Temperature block and snap it onto the Write Text to Screen block where it says PicoBricks.
Select Display. Select a Write Text to Screen block and snap it to the Write Text to Screen X 55 Y 30 Read Temperature block. Change the X value to 35, the Y value to 50 and PicoBricks to Degrees.
Select Display. Select a Show Screen Buffer block and snap it to the Write Text to Screen X 35 Y 50 "Degrees" block.
Select Loops. Select a wait block and snap it to the Show Screen Buffer block.

The completed block code for temperature monitoring

We've now completed the code for our temperature monitor.

Run it and watch

Select the run button at the top of the code window.

You should now see the live temperature displayed on the OLED screen. 🎉

The live room temperature shown on the OLED screen

Try it yourself

Challenge: Can you make your project react to the temperature? Try adding an if statement so the screen shows a message like Too hot! when the temperature climbs above a number you choose (your threshold). For an extra challenge, light up an LED whenever the room gets warm.

Stuck? Quick fixes

Problem	Try this
PicoBricks won't connect, or the connect button stays greyed out	Check the USB cable is pushed in at both ends, click the Connection button at the top of the code area, and use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.
Nothing appears on the OLED screen	Make sure your `Clear Screen Buffer` and `Show Screen Buffer` blocks are in place, and that all your blocks are snapped inside the `forever` loop.
The temperature shows once but never changes	Check the `Read Temperature` block is snapped into the `Write Text to Screen` block, and that a `wait` block sits inside the `forever` loop so it keeps refreshing.
The words overlap or sit in the wrong place	Have a look at your X and Y values, they set where each piece of text sits on the screen.