Make: Family Projects for Smart Objects - Print

These days, it’s not much of a surprise that objects can sense things and communicate. Your phone is doing that right now! But what might be surprising is that it’s not at all hard or expensive to make a sensing, communicating object all by yourself.  

Perfect for the absolute beginner, the student, the teacher, the parent, and the homeschooler, this book walks you through every step you need to set up an Arduino, begin coding, and start exploring the world using the Internet of Things.

Projects Included

• Set up and run an Arduino Uno Rev3
• Construct a Dark-Detecting Light that uses photoresistors
• Make a Night Light that works from 'if-then' commands
• Build an Ice Ice Blinky that lets LED lights react to cold water
• Set up force sensor alarms just like in adventure movies
• Make a LED candle you can actually blow out
• Teach your Arduino to master echolocation
• Predict and track the weather
• Push info to the Internet with a trigger signal and get it back as an email

Meet the Author

John Keefe is the Senior Editor for Data News at public radio station WNYC in New York. The team infuses the station’s journalism with data reporting, investigations, visualizations and interactives that are both useful and playful. These range from hurricane-tracking maps to do-it-yourself kits to help predict a cicada emercence.

Keefe previously led WNYC’s news operation, developing its election coverage and breaking news capacity. He is an adjunct instructor in the Journalism + Design program at the New School and is an Innovator in Residence at the West Virginia University Reed College of Media. Keefewas an adviser to News Challenge winner CensusReporter.org.

Much of Keefe's professional work is focused on building useful, playful things for New Yorkers. On the side, he loves building useful, playful things for his family, himself and just for the fun of it -- often with friends who, together, call themselves Team Blinky. When he realized there just wasn't enough making in his life, he committed himself to making something new every week. While he hasn't quite held to that pace, he's managed to make a lot of new things, learning about electronics, sensors and coding in the process.