Week 3

After a video call with Dr. Sabry earlier this week, some questions I had about my project were answered, such as when to buy the parts and what I should do in these early stages of my FYP. Dr. Sabry also suggested I use Raspberry Pi instead of Arduino for the project.

With that in mind, I did some research on several things :-

• Pros and cons of Arduino vs. Raspberry Pi
• Whether or not Arduino sensors are compatible with Raspberry Pi
• ADC modules
• Did some revision on Basic C programming
• Found a website that teaches how to code Python
  

As the outcome of my research for this week, I learned that Raspberry Pi seems to be the more versatile and powerful alternative to Arduino, but its General Purpose Input/Outputs (GPIO) can only receive up to 3.3 Volts compared to 5 Volts in most Arduino units. However, the Raspberry Pi does have two 5 Volt power supplies to power up some sensors which require that amount of voltage.

On the other hand, I figured an ADC module such as an ADS1115 may be useful for my project as the sensors used will only pick up analog signals from the air and a method for converting them into digital signals before going through the Raspberry Pi may be required.