Outcome

Intention

The goal of this project was to create an ambient calendar alert with my Neopixel ring connected to my Particle device and my Google Calendar through IFTTT. If successful, the Particle device will send an alert vie a color change to green when my appointment to alert me that my appointment is coming up. Once the event starts, it will fade back down to white. Both the fade up and fade down function use millis ()

Practice Exercises

I set up my Neopixel ring as shown below and did some of the exercises to get comfortable using the ring.

Exercise 1

Lighting up the Neopixel one-by-one until the whole ring it lit up and then turning each pixel off, one-by-one until the whole thing is off -- wait a couple of seconds, before doing it all over again .... 

Exercise 2

Neopixel lights up blue, red, green and white in sequence -- repeats.

Exercise 3

Neopixel lights up blue, red, green and white in sequence -- but instead of all at once, it does it one pixel at a time - turns off for 1 second and repeats the sequence.

Create Ambient Calendar Alert

This practice exercise was broken down into several parts with the end goal of sending an alert to my Neopixel a few minutes before a calendar appointment was beginning. The goal is to have it fade up slowly (using millis()) and then change color as the event approached. After the event started, it would fade down (also using millis()). 

First, I wired my the Neopixel circuit and used the same corresponding code for the outer loop example above and included the Particle.function code so I could call it using the Particle console.
Next, I updated my code to include the fade up to red over a 15 minute period using milis() and then begin a fade down to white after the event began also using millis(). I checked this with the Particle Console first to make sure it worked as intended.

Finally, I used IFTTT to connect my Google calendar and my Particle device to set-up an event to test over the internet. I used green instead of red since the red is too glaring for me even and also indicates "stop" while green tells me something is about to begin. 

Reflections

This was hard and I needed to work with others to figure out how to get the code to work. Also the Neopixel very, very frustrating to work with. My first pixel was broken out of the bag (two of the three wires were disconnected) and after SparkFun sent me a new one, that too fell apart! I had to track down someone to help me solder it back together since I do not have those tools and it took a long time - I think the Neopixel is beautiful but being as delicate as it is, I'm wary about using it as a component. I did like the easy way IFTTT can connect functionalities though it does make me a little nervous giving third party systems access to my calendar. Some of the privacy discussions we had around IoT in class and from the readings really hit home for me with this particular exercise.