This 4-part series is a continuation of IoT for Beginners run throughout September based off the second project in the 24-lesson series – digital agriculture.

The term 'Internet of Things' was coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 to refer to connecting the Internet to the physical world via sensors. Since then, the term has been used to describe any device that interacts with the physical world around it either by gathering data from sensors, or providing real-world interactions via actuators (devices that do something like turn on a switch or light an LED), generally connected to other devices or the Internet.

At Microsoft we have built IoT For Beginners, a free, open source, 24-lesson curriculum to teach you all about the Internet of Things. In this series we work through the second project in the curriculum all about digital agriculture, building on the lessons from the previous series. You can catch the previous series at https://aka.ms/iot-for-beginners-videos.

Episode 2 – automate plant watering

This lesson covers controlling a water pump from your IoT device based off sensor data from the soil moisture sensor. We will also consider the sensor/actuator feedback loop including how long it can take for a sensor value to change, and how this should affect your setup and the timing of actuator control.

Speakers:
Jim Bennett, Regional Cloud Advocate, Microsoft
Jim is a Regional Cloud Advocate focusing on building out and skilling communities in the Pacific Northwest, with a focus on the Microsoft Reactor in Redmond, Washington. He’s British, so sounds way smarter than he actually is, and is happy he moved to Redmond in time to be locked down at home and not see the office he came to work in, or the places he wanted to visit. In the past he’s lived in 4 continents working as a developer in the mobile, desktop, and scientific space. He's spoken at conferences and events all around the globe, organized meetup groups and communities, and written a book on mobile development.