This is part 1 of a series of tutorials for getting started with IoT (Internet of things). I’m writing these posts to document my adventures developing an Internet of Things project, hoping that they might serve as a guide to others. Throughout the different steps of the project, we will create a network of “Things” that senses the world and acts in real-time. We will be using Raspberry Pis, NodeMCUs, sensors, actuators, and software to create a centralized dashboard where all “Things” can be monitored and controlled.

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A few months ago I started using Wakatime.com . It keeps track of the time that you spend on your code editor and identifies the language that is being used. It has a nice Dashboard with indicators about how much you code and what languages/editors are used.

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I really enjoy using the terminal. I wanted to learn how to debug from it and decided to give lldb a try. After asking google a lot of questions I found snare/voltron . Voltron looks amazing and makes debugging with lldb a lot more visual.

Here is a screenshot of lldb debugging of a simple hello world program with Voltron

Voltron lldb debugging in terminal

After getting this setup, I went back to work on an app on XCode, and realized that I had broken it. My simulator would lock up and I would have to force quit XCode.

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Today I started working on a simple shooter game. It will be a fast and fun 2D shooter that is easy to learn, imposible to master! The art comes from the Kenney.nl donation package. I want to take advantage of the accelerometer to create some cool gameplay mechanics. It runs on mobile devices (android and iOS) and is built using Lua and CoronaSDK.

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I recently found a post about a designer font made for developers. I fell in love with it, got myself a license and was really happy to have such a nice font. The problem: It does not work with my XCode out of the box! I had to modify the settings to make it look real cool. Here is the final result for the Operator Mono font running on XCode:

I couldn’t find a decent tutorial so I created one:

1. Install Raspbian on your Raspberry pi 3
2. Run this script: https://github.com/EthEmbedded/Raspi-Eth-Install/blob/master/geth-installer.sh

This morning I implemented a simple parallax system that creates the illusion of depth by using gravity data from the accelerometer with Corona SDK

First, I start to poll the accelerometer 100 times per second.

system.setAccelerometerInterval( 100 ) -- 100 hz is max

Gravity data from the accelerometer is then used to offset the angle of view. Illusion of depth is created by slightly moving the layers in the right direction, the magnitude of the movement depending on the distance to the eye.

To manage the scene I created 10 different layers. I placed the smaller shark in the front layer (layer 0), the larger shark in the middle (layer 5) and the back image to the background (layer 10).

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One of my favorite things about creating apps is finding the right tools to do it.

When I code, I spend a good amount of time making sure I am using the best designed tools for the tasks. Here is my list of must-have apps and tools for development.

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I created a Bitmap Font implementation using Corona SDK. This Lua module enables you to use a single sprite sheet as a font. Writing a string with your own custom game font is easy!

You can download the source code here

Here is a screenshot:

A bitmap font using Corona SDK and Lua

I can’t tell you the number of hours I would have saved if I started using CocoaPods earlier!

If you are developing with XCode you might already know that linking libraries to your project is a major pain… Fear no more! CocoaPods is here to save your time and day.

There are lots of resources on how to install and use CocoaPods, so here is yet another one created by me:

Using the terminal do the following steps:

1. Update  the ‘gem’

sudo gem update --system

2. Install CocoaPods

sudo gem install cocoapods -V

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