Chemwen0

So, for the past one week, I attended an event on Business Intelligence that was sponsored by IBM and IEEE. It was fun and very productive as I got to learn a lot. And I will share that since I didn't get to share anything else this week. The BI Analyst is a path that gives one the opportunity to learn the essential reporting software's to create management reports. Majorly you will be required to have skills on reporting applications such as Data Filters and Graphics, Structured Query Language(SQL), HTML and structured and unstructured data. As a BI Analyst, you will be required to use this tools to create reports,analyze and monitor events to meet an organization's requirements. But don't let all that scare you. You can also learn as you go. Get to learn what Cognos is. Haha, that name never stops intriguing me. Its a path that is fun and it would be amazing if all of you would try it. Its  a skill that even if your goal isn't to be an Analyst, it will

For the LCD, I am using a The MCUFriend Touch Screen. It took me a little bit of time to crack this one since i hard not read about the operation of TouchScreens before. But, I will take my time and explain it a little bit and leave you with some of the reading materials that really helped me. The Libraries will always help you navigate. They always help me figure out what questions I need an answer to as there is a lot of functionality you'll discover hence a lot to learn. Always take your time. The MCUFriend is a resistive touchscreen. There are various types of touchscreens, the common ones being the capacitive and resistive ones. I say its resistive because, as you will notice, you will always be required to give a range in which you will apply pressure on to it. As you can seebelow.   The MCUFriend has a couple of pins. As shown below. LCD_RST - As the name suggests, its responsible for resetting the LCD. LCD_CS   - LCD chip select LCD_RS   - LCD regi

Finally, the Wheatstone Bridge and some few more concepts we learned in school get applied in real life!! Isn't that exciting?? The load cell, as we said earlier , is used to measure electrical signal whose magnitude is directly proportional to the force being applied on it. There are a variety of load cells among which I will be using a strain gauge. Basically, the strain gauge measures the electrical resistance (which is proportional to the strain being applied) on the device.  Each strain gauge has a different sensitivity to strain. This is known as the Strain Factor or the Gauge factor (the ratio of the relative change in electrical resistance to the mechanical strain)   So enough with the class stuff, lets get to the part we all like: I had the worst time with this thing. Rule of thumb from me: Never trust everything as said by the manufacturer. They too make mistakes. Some of which may take you days to realize. Like me and the load cell & HX711.

So, I am still working on this project, though i just thought it would be nice to share my experience and hopefully get to finish it up ASAP. For starters, Arduino is something you should really consider trying. Its so fun and you get to learn a lot and put your coding skills, research ability and technical skills to work. You need to experience it. I wil start with a basic introduction of Arduino and the modules and technologies we will be using. Well, Arduino has a variety of boards (from different manufacturers) you can choose from. Some of them include UNO(Most common), Mega, Red, LilyPad, Leonardo etc. I will be using Arduino Mega. Arduino is open source and I guess thats why I love it the more. If you don't have it installed, visit Arduino to get it. What we need for these project. 1. Arduino board and Software The Arduino software basically uses a set of c/c++ functions as its programming language (The Arduino programming language.   An understanding o