My primary objective of creating my live surf report display is to showcase a live report of the surf for a given location which my database will update to.
Surfers love to know the conditions before they drive all the way to the beach, but cannot always rely on the word of mouth, or the conditions from the last time they surfed, since the ocean is always changing. The solution my surf report display brings is that it will display the live conditions of the surf spot with moderate accuracy so that the surfer can decide for himself whether it’s worth it to go or not.
My motivation this project lies with my number one hobby when I am not busy with school: surfing. I love the sport and culture of surfing so much that it influenced my decision making in creating a project for this class: CS530. A background for this project and some inspiration comes from an existing app: Surfline. This app shows live data coming from all over the world regarding surf conditions, forecasts, and articles about surfing. My idea about creating a live marquee that could display the surf report in real time seemed like a great idea because I wouldn’t have to log into Surfline.
Hardware:
+Arduino Mega 2560 +Breadboard and Wires (Elegoo kit) +USB connection to Mac +LCD 1602 Display (Elegoo kit)
Software:
+Python: libraries/modules included Serial.tools, time, requests, re, math, BeautifulSoup +Arduino IDE: Uses C/C++, with <LiquidCrysal.h>
In a python script, I utilize the serial.tools module to communicate with the Arduino software. This is done by sharing the USB port as a means of communication, then sending data via a Serial.write command. The python script itself consists of a web scraper I designed which utilizes the “BeautifulSoup” library and “re” module to fetch the HTML source code of the buoy website I needed. Another function used that scraped data to form a wave height prediction using a formula found from Surfline.com All of this data is written into a string where it can be easily transmitted to the Arduino’s source code which runs on the Arduino IDE
Once the Arduino receives the string from python via the Serial port, it begins formatting some of the string itself to separate the surf spot location from its data, which includes wave height (ft) and wind speed (mph), and direction (N,W,S,E).
The Arduino microcontroller receives instructions from its source code which transmit through the data input and power ports via wires.
def getHTMLdocument(url):
def waveHeightFunc(H,P):
def parseSwellSite(urlNum):
def parseWindSite(urlNum):
def summarizeData(spotID):
# ARDUINO COMMUNICATION SETUP
ports = serial.tools.list_ports.comports()
serialInst = serial.Serial()
serialInst.baudrate = 115200
serialInst.port = "/dev/cu.usbmodem1101"
serialInst.open()
9/15: Purchased all Materials (Arduino Mega Set, LED Displays, Breadboards, wires, Arduino IDE) 9/20: Began assembling all wiring materials included with the arduino in order to set up LCD display. 9/21: Successfully assembled. 9/22: Began to test programming features on the Arduino to LCD display connection. 9/23: Began working on code scraper to inspect element of forecasting websites 11/30: Finished code scraper and began testing with display 12/3: Finished testing with display, ready to present
Surfline: https://www.surfline.com/surf-report/blacks/5842041f4e65fad6a770883b
NDBC:
https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46275
WillyWind:
https://wind.willyweather.com/ca/san-diego-county/trestles.html
Formula:
https://icce-ojs-tamu.tdl.org/icce/article/view/2763/2427
Github: https://github.com/ThanksLogan/SurfTrak