Make and physical thing with AWS IoT Core

This workshop guides developers through the process of creating their first cloud connected microcontroller project. Working with a physical device can feel daunting (especially for those who are ‘cloud native’) yet seeing a physical device interact with the cloud can be an exciting and liberating feeling.

This workshop has four phases:

• A brief overview of IoT architecture and the hardware
• Setting up a toolchain with PlatformIO
• AWS IoT core, creating a Thing & ‘Hello World’
• Extension & discussion

During the workshop participants will build a basic messaging system. Where messages they POST to an API will then be relayed to an ESP32 microcontroller with an OLED display. This can be extended to demonstrate return data flow with push buttons on the device, modifying a value in a DynamoDB table or adjusting a topic filter.

The main objective is for participants to leave the workshop with the confidence and skills to explore IoT applications without getting stymied by the development toolchain. By keeping the last portion of the workshop open to discussion and demonstrating several ways participants could extend the demo we can provide further background on the hardware they may need to support that.