Hey,
I was looking at the size of the Spark Core and I am anxious if the Spark Core is too big for my breadboard…
I have a 400 point solderless breadboard, and want to know if the Spark Core can fit on there?
Don’t worry, it’ll fit 
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Thanks!!
Also where should I start? I have got so much information, I don’t know where to start? What application will I be using and which coding language is it?
I have a few more questions in mind.
Does the Spark Core have to be connected to the Internet? I am going to present my science fair at a school, and we may not have Wi-Fi there.
Does the model always have to be in the baking soda and orange juice? As the school is far away from my home, I wanted to know if the how the flow meter works and if they always have to be connected to the baking soda. I will disconnect the pump on the car ride to the competition and will connect it together with the flow meter and baking soda at the competition. Is this okay?
Next, How does the flow meter work? Where should I connect this meter to?
Next, so as the judges come by, I will submerge the conductivity sensor into the acid( Orange Juice), and would like to know if as soon as I submerge, will the Spark Core begin sending data to the web application as the pump starts pumping baking soda into the orange juice?
Where do I plug the other end of the Spark Cable? Does the Spark Core need to be charged?
If you’re sure you’re going to use the Spark Core, then get your hands on that as soon as possible. Even if you’re not going to use it for this project, it’s really awesome, and definitely worthwhile!
The application for coding the firmware for the Core will most likely be the online IDE. Like the main page says, It makes use of the Wiring language, which is the same as Arduino uses. This makes it easy to find examples. It can also work with C/C++ if I’m not mistaken.
The Google spreadsheets part will work with their software, which looks a lot like JavaScript (haven’t really looked into it yet). Depending on how difficult you want to make things on yourself, the examples provided in the topic I linked to, will suffice.
The Core itself will be able to work without an internet connection. You will however not be able to use its network functionalities. That means you won’t be able to send information to the internet, nor will you be able to control it over the web. If you can bring a wireless router, that might be best, since then you’ll be able to create your own network. Another possibility is to use a mobile hotspot. Most mobile phones nowadays are capable of sharing their internet connections by creating a hotspot. You can most likely use that to connect your Core to the internet.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘model’, but the Core goes on the breadboard. Since it’ll get it’s measurements from there as well, it should work as long as the rest works.
Honestly, I would ditch the idea of the flow meter. It was just one of many possibilities, but @peekay123 's suggestion is much neater, and should be preferred.
That’s up to you to code. The Core is as brilliant as it is dumb. It can do a lot of things, but only the things you tell it to do. If you don’t tell it to measure things, it won’t measure things. If you don’t tell it to send data, it won’t. Turning on when you want it to definitely belongs to the possibilities.
The Core can be powered over micro USB using pretty much any USB adapter that provides 5V, 300+mA, preferably 500+mA. The Core itself can not be charged, since it’s doesn’t contain a battery. Although it’s possible to use an external battery pack (those cell phone back-up batteries), it might drain those rather fast, depending on the capacity. You can even make it run of normal batteries, but I’d suggest you stick with the USB powered micro USB cable.
@peekay123 mentioned this already, but I’ll repeat it just to be sure. Coding stuff, and making projects like this can be, and often is, a lot of fun. When you’ve never done so before, and you’re under time pressure it can become rather stressful. Is there anybody you could ask to help/assist you, preferably with some experience with things like these? If so, then please do ask for help, since it will save you a tremendous amount of problems.
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@benclough, I think you need to find someone who can help you locally and with Arduino experience. Otherwise, we will not be able to help you much more.
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@benclough, IF you are using a Spark Core to read the conductivity sensor and control your pump then you could measure:
- The conductivity of the solution (from the sensor) as it relates to pH
- The amount of time the pump is on or off - knowing what the flowrate of the pump is (milliliters per minute or hour), you could estimate total liquid volume pumped.
@benclough, a lot of your questions suggest that you are biting off much more than you can chew here. You really need a coach/mentor who has experience with micro-controllers before you can go any further. Without wanting to be rude, I cannot not help you any further until that happens. 
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I have a group of people who can help me with building the Spark Core with group. What bothers me is the fact that they have the same question:
How does this work: Can you elaborate more?
It would be really helpful if you answer this final question. It would be considered with appreciation
@Moors7
Final question before I wrap up this forum, How could I connect this idea of @peekay123 with Google Spreadsheets?
Also can @Moors7 look into the Google Spreadsheets and explain the idea in simple terms? I saw the Google spreadsheets Idea and there is code, can I use the excat code?
@benclough, if your support group is asking the same questions then they may not have the knowledge required to use the Core. Do they have Arduino experience?
As for logging to google spreadsheets:
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I don’t want to crush your dreams or anything, but I have to agree with @peekay123 on this one. If none of the people in your group can answer even these questions, then it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to get this working. You need someone with experience locally to help you. If that person can’t answer these questions, then they’re not the right person. If you don’t understand the Spark specific stuff, that’s understandable, but you’re asking for basic electronics, and basic programming. Those two things you should know before starting, or have someone there to help you, who does know.
Of course we can keep answering all your questions here, like we’ve been doing so far, but until you get someone with experience, that’s not going to help.
I could go though the Google Spreadsheet topic and tell you how it works. But I’m not going to do that for several reasons:
- It isn’t my project. Although I’d gladly help you, I’m not going to make it for you, nor is it likely someone else will. This forum is for helping each other out, not for doing each others work. If you’ve got some specific questions like:“I don’t understand this particular piece of code, could you explain it?”, that might be okay. Now it’s more like:“tell me how to do everything”, which is, unfortunately, not okay.
- The Spark Core is a ‘development kit’, something you use for developing things. It’s not a Lego building kit with a guide that tells you where to put what item. You’re going to have to figure stuff out on your own.
- I personally feel like you aren’t putting in as much effort as you’re expecting us to put in for you. The Google topic, for example, has been referred to countless times, yet you’re still asking for information that’s given in that topic. That makes me feel like you don’t care enough to even read it. Following that, if you don’t care, then why should I?
- Most of your questions come down to:“tell me how to build my project”. In your original post you asked for step by step instructions. Again, we’re glad to help, but we’re no building manual. We can give you general pointers on where to look, and provide you with useful informations, but we can’t and won’t build it for you. That’s up to you.
If you still want to pursue this path, then get someone who knows what he’s doing to help you. If you find such a person, then feel free to ask some more questions. Until such time, I’m afraid neither @peekay123 nor I can be of much help any more. There’s only so much we can do over a forum, and teaching electronics and programming is (un)fortunately not one of them.
Regardless of your decisions, I wish you the best of luck!
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Let me try this again. It was, and is, in no way ever my intention to be either offensive or demotivating.
The reason I said it feels like you want a step by step guide, was/is due to the fact that you don’t seem to take up information unless it’s chewed up in nice little chunks.
The Google Spreadsheet is a good example of that. I know and understand that that topic might look daunting at first, but if you had bothered to properly read it, you would’ve noticed that there are examples in there which tell you what’s happening. It’s even commented in multiple places. That doesn’t mean you should immediately understand it, but saying “I saw there was code” gives me the impression you didn’t bother to look at the code itself.
Believe me when I say we share the same “you-can-do-this” mentality. Maybe it’s due to some more experience that we can relate to that a bit more realistically. What you’re asking us to explain are things that I’m currently being thought in university. They’re not easy to understand, albeit still being relatively easy. It’s mentioned before, but perhaps you’re taking on more than you can handle, without professional/experienced help.
That’s not a question that can be answered on a forum. Most of the concepts being applied in the project you’re describing take many years of higher education to get even a basic grasp of. What you’ve currently built is probably also above your level of knowledge, considering the fact that you didn’t knew PH and conductivity are related, for example. That’s not a bad thing. The project is surely very interesting, but do you actually understand what’s happening on a lower level? Ion exchange, chemical reactions, flowing currents, conductivity, Ohm’s Law, Transistors, potentiometers, resistance. Those are no easy concepts to understand.
Unless you understood all of those concepts decently, there’s no way you could’ve built that project without a guide of some sort (which is what you’ve linked to). Again, that’s not a bad thing.
The fact that you’d like to add internet connectivity to it, and expand the current project is also very admirable. The only catch lies in the fact that there are again new, and difficult, concepts to learn, for which there isn’t a manual/guide this time. Like I’ve said before, you’ll need to think of things on your own. And when the basic knowledge isn’t there (yet), that’s nearly impossible.
What has changes since? The fact that you removed that text doesn’t mean that your questions don’t imply the same. If you do not want step by step answers, then what do you want, exactly? “how does this work” is too vague of a question to answer. We’ve given you ideas on how you could measure PH values (using the conductivity sensor you built), and we’ve given you several options to get this information on the web (think Google Spreadsheets), which even included a guide how to do so. If you don’t want to use step by step guidance, then please do share what exactly it is that you want?
A recent example of this is the question for me to go through the whole Google topic, and lay it out for you in sizeable chunks. That, to me, sounds like you want me to shop it up into steps you can follow. Other than the fact that I don’t feel I should be doing your projects, for reasons listed in several posts, I think you could put in the effort to at least try it yourself. If there’s something specific you don’t understand, then by all means, please ask away. But in order for that to work, we need concrete questions, like:“why do you assign a variable to that?”, or “why do we need a function for that?”, not something like:“could you summarize the topic for me?”.
It’s not that we don’t want to help, but there’s only so much we can do. If the foundation isn’t there, then there little to build on. Building a house on quicksand could also be considered “a bit challenging”, using your analogy.
Also, it’s not just “a bit challenging”. Some of the concepts that are being applied is material that’s currently being thought to me at a technical university, studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. I don’t consider myself to be stupid, but half of the stuff in there is still black magic to me. If I asked you to explain Quantum mechanics to me right now, or rocket science for that matter, would you be able to to it? Although it might not sound as fancy, it’s a least comparable in terms of difficulty. You shouldn’t underestimate that.
You’ve nailed the EXACT cause of the problem. You ARE in a world where you don’t understand the language, or the customs and traditions. Is it reasonable to expect someone from the other side of the world, to teach you all that? They can’t teach you everything, but they can push you in the right direction. They can tell you to take a course for the language, or tell you to go to the library to study the customs, or mingle with the people to learn the traditions. But he can’t do it for you. If you’re going to grow in that strange world, you must do so on your own. Getting help and guidance from others isn’t the problem, but they can’t learn it for you.
The fact that you’re “alone” makes it even worse. Try to imagine that you have to teach a three year old how to ride a bike. Sounds reasonable, right? Now imagine that that kid has never seen a bike. It’s also deaf, and can’t speak your language. Oh, and also, you’re going to have to do it from the other side of the world over a computer.
Sounds ridiculous, right? That’s pretty much the problem we’re facing. It’s not that we don’t want to teach the kid how to ride it’s bike, it’s just so hard when there are so many hurdles to cross. Now, If you were there, you could show the kid how its done. You can hold it’s bike, and make sure it doesn’t fall. You can help where needed. That is REALLY hard to do from behind a computer screen.
That is the reason why we’ve said you need experienced help locally. Unless you’ve got someone helping you out if you find problems, and guide you, it’s near impossible for us to help you.
Again, I was in no way trying to be offensive, and I apologise if you feel like I was. I hope the above can make you see some of our standpoints, and help you realise why it’s such a difficult issue.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours!
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I have a friend who can code multiple amount of coding languages. He would like to know which coding language Google Spreadsheets is in, I discovered some Python, JavaScript but in a previous post you mentioned the use of C/C++?
Ignoring the above mentioned things, try this.
The reference to the C/C++ part can be found here, give it a read 
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@peekay123
@Moors7
If I wanted Google Spreadsheets to send data to IFTTT
Should it be something like:
If received data on Google Spreadsheet then send data to john.smith@gmail.com?
@benclough, which probe are you looking at?
You can setup the core to send data TO a Google Spreadsheet at regular intervals (15 secs for example). @Moors7 already provided a link that explains how. You and your friend need to read what was posted!
There are pinned topics regarding IFTTT on the main page of the forum, which clearly state that they’re beginner tutorials. If you’re planning on learning anything during this project, might I suggest that to be the ability to read and take initiative?
I have a question @peekay123
Can you guide me to a article where you can record the pumping activity over time?
Also can you guide to me an article to this idea
I research and could not find anything specific regarding these two, and would love it if either one of you could point to a few guides regarding this please.
I’m sorry if I am troubling you guys too much, but I can’t seem to find any articles
To do a very simple demo that you are able to get data from the device, you can display the information on your computer using Serial
The example code you can try is:
void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop(){
Serial.println("Hello!");
I hope you have played with Arduinos before of your friend has some clue what this is doing.
From there, we can extend this example to read from the pH probe and display on the computer screen.
Let’s not be too ambitious and break down the project into doable steps before even proceeding with Google spreadsheet or apps or whatever.
This way, you have something to demo within the timeframe of your project instead of all or nothing approach.
Steps
1.) Control pump to on/off
2.) Read the pH value from the sensor
3.) Display the pH value from the sensor via Serial
4.) Increase/decrease pH level according to the sensor reading
5.) Setup IFTTT with email notification when the Spark core goes online (to test that it works)
6.) Setup IFTTT to save data to Google Spreadsheet
This is how you can approach problems in general like an engineering student 
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If you were you send the state of the motor over time, then you’d have the pumping activity? Let’s say you send the status (pump on/off) every 5 seconds, and you do that for an hour, then you have 720 data points which show you the activity over time. You can plot that, if you want. If you know how much liquid the pump displaces per time interval, you could calculate the amount of liquid moved. That too, can be plotted.
Reading the output of the conductivity sensor is basic electronics again. The fact that you need to ask that question, leads me to believe that you still haven’t found anyone with proper knowledge to help you.
To that end, I think it might be a good idea to have you draw the electrical circuit you’re using. Not the pictures of the breadboard, but the actual components in a schematic. Seems like a valid test to find out whether you, or the person helping you, knows what he’s doing. You’re going to need it anyhow, if you want to understand were you’ll need to measure certain things. Unless you want us to tell you where to plug everything in, that is.
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I don’t know if you know this, but I am not trying to control the pump or read the pH value or increase/ decrease the pH level.
I love how you organized it by steps so I have a clear idea of what I’m doing, but I am trying to record the pumping activity, as a line graph, and it would be lovely if you point me to a article(s) about recording pumpinng activity.
I have one minor question:
Where would I code the code for Google Spreadsheets? Is it supposed to be all in Google Script or is it supposed to be coded in online Spark IDE?
Can anybody help me and show me the pumping activity article?