GPS DRAWING
I'm Making this project Gps drawing or "Walking with satellites", just because we take for granted non tangible technologies these days. We need to take ownership of our personal information and how is taken through the lenses of the digital world.
Tools:
FLORA main board
FLORA GPS
battery holder with battery3xAAA battery holder
A Laser Cut Template, I'm providing here for the box.
Laser cut Access
First Let's Assemble the GPS
Use alligator clips to connect Flora's 3.3V pad to the 3.3V pad on the GPS.
Connect RX to TX and TX to RX, then finally GND to GND.
Test It on Your Computer
2. Basic Flora test:
Copy and paste this code into a new sketch window and upload it to your Flora: // test a passthru between USB and hardware serial
void setup() { while (!Serial); Serial.begin(9600); Serial1.begin(9600); }
void loop() { if (Serial.available()) { char c = Serial.read(); Serial1.write(c); } if (Serial1.available()) { char c = Serial1.read(); Serial.write(c); } }
Now that it works, let’s program it so it you can get basic data from it. First download the Adafruit zip Library from this link: guthub now let’s save the folder in your Arduino Library.
1.Once you've tested your GPS circuit using the FLORA GPS guide, it's time to load the logging program. Plug in your FLORA over USB. In the Adafruit Arduino IDE or on Codebender, choose the Adafruit_GPS library sample program leo_locus_status.
2. Choose Adafruit Flora from the Boards menu.
3. Choose your board's serial port, it will look like tty.usbmodemXXX on Mac, and one of the COM ports on a PC.
4.Choose Adafruit Flora from the Boards menu.
5.Click upload to load the program onto FLORA.
Once the code is uploaded you are ready to take a Walk and start Drawing your path.
Loading Your Info to the Computer
Let's load the program that will transmit the log stored on the GPS module to the computer over serial. Connect FLORA over USB and load up the leo_locus_dumpbasic example Codebender
2. Upload this sketch to your FLORA and open serial monitor.
3. You are going to start watching on the serial monitor the locations you've been, wait until it finishes dumping all the data.
Highlight and copy the log data from the line below --------------- and ending with$PMTK001,622,3*36.
Locus Parser, Google Maps and TXT Files
Paste your log into Locus parser data which will nicely format the GPS sentences into XML that Google Maps can understand. Click Parse Data.
Copy the KML output into a text file (TextEdit or Notepad) and save it somewhere on your computer.
Make sure the Text edited it's preferences are modified to regular txt files rather than rich text files.
You can change that option on the preferences menu.
When you are done pasting your code, save your document as a KML, not .txt
Assembling the Box
You are going to need a Laser cutter,
The template for the box that I'm posting above.
Acrylic 1/8th
First send the files to the laser cutter.
After that you can start assembling the box in the order It's been made.
HAVE FUN! :)