The M5 Stick and Stack provide a novice-friendly ESP32 sensor and control platform with WiFi capability. These provide a great means for introducing the internet of things in a way that improves the understanding of the backend in IoT. Users can relatively quickly generate computer code with a friendly “Blockly” diagram coding framework and then, depending on skill and interest, alter it with microPython code. The M5 devices can also be programmed with the Arduino framework.
With support from the WHIN project, Andrew Balmos of Purdue Ag Research and Graduate Education and the Open Ag Technology and Systems Center explains these devices in a series of videos that introduces the concept of IoT and takes a learner to the point of having a device that sends data to them via email or populates data into a private Google Sheet.
IoT for everyone videos:
Part 1 – Basic IoT concepts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ENG7beLflM
Part 2 – Setting up the backend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNuRmp5Qko
Part 3 – Programming for an order button to email (coming soon)
Part 4 – Stand alone session with programming for sensor data landing in your Google Sheet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SQmgvn4cf4&feature=youtu.be