Cavanagh M. - Netduino Home Automation Projects

Matt Cavanagh is a professional maker and tinkerer. From his armchair in Durban, South Africa, he lives the dream, wearing suit and slippers with cigar in his hand (fine, just the slippers). He gave up corporate development to start his own company writing Windows and Windows Phone apps, but mostly messes around all day with Netduinos, 3D printers, and his pet quadrocopter. He is also a Nokia Developer Champion who occasionally gives talks on Windows Phone and Netduino.

Oh, and he writes stuff too.

I would like to thank Secret Labs for being awesome, and the Netduino community for being an endless source of ideas and help. Most of all though, I need to thank my beautiful wife, Kaila, for putting up with most of our house being covered in wires and servos.

Oliver Manickum has been developing enterprise level software for the past 17 years. He has developed applications across multiple platforms extending from Linux to Windows. He is very passionate about embedded software development, especially open source electronic platforms, where he spends many hours playing with the Arduino and Netduino prototype boards. In real life, Oliver's occupation is developing mobile applications for Android and Windows Phone.

Lance McCarthy is a professional XAML developer, XAML Support Specialist at Telerik, and a Nokia Developer Ambassador for the Northeastern United States. He is an award winning Windows Phone developer and has been writing for the platform since September 2010. Passionate about melding hardware and software, in his spare time Lance uses the power of the Netduino and Windows Phone to create projects that blend the worlds of electronics and human interaction.

I would like to thank Matt Cavanagh for his pure awesomeness, my employers for encouraging creativity, and my wife Amy for her undying patience with my mad scientist moments.

When I was a kid I had a Meccano set, which is pretty much the coolest childhood "toy" that exists because it allows you to build things without actually knowing how to build things. But it was limitedthere was no interactivity beyond a switch and a motor.

So I started pulling apart appliances such as Hi-Fis and putting them back together. I got so good at doing this that, at one stage, was able to put things back together with only a small handful of screws and parts left over.

But there was a very definite gap between what I wanted to do and what I could actually do with my limited knowledge. Child-oriented electronics kits were pretty useless too, as they would help you make one or two very specific projects, but didn't equip you for anything beyond that.

Jump forward to today, and finally there is something to bridge that gap. For me, that is the Netduino. The Netduino (and other development boards like it) allows everyone from a hobbyist to an electronic engineer to build pretty much anything, and removes all the complexities that were holding us back before. You get all of the power, and a lot less of the frustration.

This book will guide even a novice .NET developer through a range of projects specifically chosen to cover all the fundamentals of the platform. With the knowledge gained from these projects, you will be able to build a massive range of gadgetsonly limited by what you can think up, not just by the index page of this book. It will even give you a jumpstart into developing apps for the AGENT smartwatch, which is a watch running the .NET Micro Framework, developed by the team that made the Netduino.

When you've completed the book, head on over to http://blog.roguecode.co.za, where I regularly blog about more advanced topics usually related to Netduino and Windows Phone.

With the rise of electronic development boards, 3D printing, homemade laser cutters, and much more, being a maker is cool now. So go forth and conquer.