##Interchangeable, connected gauges.

T-10 (FTC 4096)'s entry for the imaginethis.io IoT competition

gauge opens your tabletop into a world of Internet-connected data possibilities. Simply select the data you'd like to show, and print the unique gauge face to affix to your device.

The data your gauge can display ranges from the weather, to presidential delegate count, to days until your FTC Robotics team's regional competition. With minimal setup, a small servo and Particle Photon can be turned into a magical blend of analog and digital, representing the vast metrics that the internet today has to offer.

And it's fully automated and easily customizable, thanks to our web interface and servo daemon.

##FIRST Robotics

As the need for an online presence of FIRST teams has only been increasing, it's important to keep track of the metrics which can define a team's success in outreach.

From the number of a team's twitter followers, to the success of a hashtag, to the progress of a GoFundMe fundraiser, displaying this information in a personal, passive setting can prove extremely useful.

Support for metrics such as these are built-in to the gauge project. You can simply select, configure and print any metric to your desire within seconds. Our server will then query the corresponding web services automatically.

The facebook gauge and configuration in action. The likes are polled automatically every few minutes from facebook.com after the user defines which page to represent.

The wunderground gauge is updated regularly to the forecasted conditions in the given area, allowing for easy indication of the local weather.

##Gauges

Most gauges take full advantage of the data the internet has to offer, or at the very least, are completely remotely configurable. These include:

• Bern-O-Meter - scrapes the delegate count of Bernie Sanders for the democratic primary
• Days Till - Uses the remote server's calendar to calculate the days remaining until a FIRST local competition
• Facebook - tracks the likes on a team's facebook page
• Followers - tracks the number followers of a team's twitter account
• Fundraiser - tracks the progress of a team's GoFundMe page
• Pollen - tracks pollen.com/wunderground's pollen index
• Twitter - tracks the popularity of a twitter hashtag in real time
• Weather - gives a weather condition forecast via wunderground

##The Technology

Hardware-wise, we used a Particle Photon generously provided by Microsoft/FIRST, as well as a standard PWM servo.

For software, as the emphasis was web services, we opted for a Node.JS web stack. In particular, we used the Express web framework, the Pug templating engine, and Particle's own API wrapper to control the hardware. To scrape data, we used a parser called cheerio. For realtime twitter updates, we used the official twitter module.

##Implementation

• Upload photon.ino to your particle photon, and plug in a pwm servo to port 0.
• Run npm install.
• Edit config.json to your particle account details. Note that the program assumes you only have one device registered to your account, and will select the first one it sees.
• Run npm run start and head to http://localhost:3000
• Choose your gauge, print it on paper, and affix it to your device.
• Enter the parameters necessary for the gauge to function, then press "Save & Use!"
• Keep the program running on a server.