August 2021: React and SVGs Together & My First Internet of Things Project - A GPS Tracker & Map
I've also got an IoT for beginners recommendation too (being a newbie, myself - I can attest to its quality).
Hi all,
Summer is winding down here in the United States, and I’m writing this newsletter to you from the beach. My family and I headed to the east coast of Florida for a little getaway and a change of scenery - I recommend Jensen Beach if you’re in need of some sand between your toes.
Before I head back outside for a dip in the ocean, here’s what’s been happening in August.
Ever struggled to get SVGs to work in a React app? Me too. So I wrote about the solution I found, which I bet will work for you too.
For whatever reason, SVGs correctly rendering in React weren’t always so simple. Even just a few years ago, it wasn’t as easy as importing the file and plugging it into an <img>
tag.
Well, I’ll save you the trial and error of figuring out which npm package actually makes this possible - it’s a library developed and maintained by the core webpack team, so you can bet it works well with the webpack config (still the gold standard for JavaScript project config files).
I made my first IoT project and posted it to Hackster.io: it’s a beginner-friendly GPS-enabled asset tracker and map visualization.
This beach week gave me a little bit of extra free time, so I decided to make some good use of it by writing my first Hackster.io project. It was a lot of fun and the project even got featured on the homepage!
For my first foray, I wanted a low-code project that allowed me to see some results fairly easily, and when I learned the Blues Wireless Notecarrier has cellular and GPS capabilities built-in, I decided to try to create an asset tracker.
Once my tracker was collecting coordinates and sending to the Blues Wireless Notehub cloud, I wanted to feed it somewhere to display the coordinates on a map and the low-code IoT platform Datacake made that part simple.
I won’t go into any further details here, but if you’d like to make your own tracker - or just see how easy it can be, check out my post.
Finally, I’ve got an Internet of Things recommendation if you’re interested in getting started with IoT programming of your own.
As I said in my last newsletter, I recently joined the IoT startup Blues Wireless as a staff software engineer, and although my role involves working on the websites for Blues, learning about the exciting world of programming hardware like Arduino microcontrollers and Raspberry Pi single board computers is an extra bonus for me.
To get me started, a coworker recommended I read “The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide”, and even though it’s geared towards kids, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Everything’s accessible and easy to understand, and I quite like the full color photos and cute illustrations throughout. If you’re looking for a place to start your IoT learning, this is a good one.
I’m looking forward to writing more programming intensive projects for Hackster in the future with the knowledge I’ve gained from this primer. Stay tuned, because I’ll definitely let you know when I the next publish.
I hope you enjoyed this month’s edition of “Paige Codes”. Please share with your friends if you did.
See you again in September,
- Paige
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