Hardware Kit

To learn programming with IoT devices, we use a pre-configured set of IoT devices. This lesson introduces the devices, so that you are familiar with the development kit.

Goals

• Learn about the Tinkerforge building block system

• Become familiar with the different devices from the development kit.

Overview

The kit consists of 5 devices from the small German company name Tinkerforge:

• A controller (Master Brick)

• A combined humidity and temperature sensor (Humidity 2.0 Bricklet)

• A colored LED (RGB LED Bricklet 2.0)

• A colored LED button (RGB LED Button Bricklet)

• An OLED display (OLED 124x64 Bricklet 2.0)

To connect the devices, the kit includes the following cables:

• 2 x 15 cm 10p-7p cables

• 2 x 15 cm 10p-10p cables

• 1 x USB cable (USB Type A to USB Mini A) to connect the controller to a PC (or Raspberry Pi)

Click on the link for each device to see the official documentation with specification details.

The IoT kit with the controller and 4 connected devices.

The Controller

The controller can connect to 4 devices simultaneously. The Tinkerforge building block system in its latest version uses 7-pole cables to connect devices via standardized sockets. Some older devices still use 10-pole cables. To mix both new and old devices, Tinkerforge offers 7p-10p cables as well. Depending on the mix of old and new devices, we need to make sure we have the right cables available.

A 7-pole cable to connect devices. Source: Tinkerforge

The Sensor

The Button

The LED

The Display