Gabor is one of our experienced DevOps programmers who mainly works on our in-house project Flatstone Grove. He is also responsible for marketing and creating all sound and music for the Flatstone Grove app. Gabor feels very close to nature and shares his home with five quails, three dogs, four cats, five chickens and one cute goat. If there is a chance to save an animal, he will do whatever it takes, no matter what.
When he recently acquired a handful of spiderlings, he decided to create for them the perfect climate, and while I personally am not a fan of those hairy, eight-legged creatures, I just had to find out more.
Gabor. Spiders. Spiders?!
Yes, I bought three tiny spiderlings, and they are super cute. I had spiders years ago. Sadly, they died, and that’s why I decided to build this automated terrarium for these ones. Interestingly, I bought them online and they arrived by post. Thankfully, the postman didn’t know what was in that parcel, haha.
Tell me about the features in the terrarium.
It has a heater with a ventilator, a thermometer, a sensor, and I’m just in the process of installing an ultrasound humidifier. In order to control all of these objects, I use Arduino, more specifically an ESP8266, which is a Wifi microchip with built-in TCP/IP networking software and microcontroller capability.
I can see the stats on a web UI and set up the schedules and rules.
What does the schedule look like?
I have a daytime and a nighttime temperature set-up. When the temperature is too high, the ventilator turns on; the heater kicks in when it’s too low. If the humidity is too low for the spiders, the ultrasound humidifier sprays some water into the air.
It’s a simple set-up, but it’s necessary because these spiders are such delicate creatures.
In addition to humidity and temperature, the sensor can also measure air pressure, air quality, CO2 level and a few other things.
I’m still no fonder of spiders than I was before. But seeing how Gabor set up the terrarium and automated a home of a different kind to provide the perfect environment for his new insect friends shows just how flexible and versatile this technology can be. Now I just wonder what kind of animal Gabor will acquire next…
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