laravel4cookbook

Embedded Systems
What do you think of when you hear the name Laravel? Laravel 4 powers an increasing number of
websites, but that’s not the only place it can be used. In this tutorial we’re going to use it to control
embedded systems.
.
The code for this chapter can be found at: https://github.com/formativ/tutorial-laravel-4-
embedded-systems.
Gathering Parts
This tutorial demonstrates the use of an Arduino and a web cam. There are other smaller parts,
but these are the main ones. The Arduino needs firmata installed (explained later) and the webcam
needs to be compatible with Linux and Motion (installed later).
We will go over using things like LEDs and resisters, but none of those are particularly important.
We will also go over using servos and these are important. You can find the bracket I use at:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10335 and the servos I use at: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9065.
You can get these parts, and an Arduino Uno, for less than $55.
Installing Dependencies
We’re developing a Laravel 4 application which has lots of server-side aspects; but there’s also an
interactive interface. There be scripts!
For this; we’re using Bootstrap and jQuery. Download Bootstrap at: http://getbootstrap.com/ and
unpack it into your public folder. Where you put the individual files makes little difference, but I
have put the scripts in public/js, the stylesheets in public/css and the fonts in public/fonts. Where
you see those paths in my source code; you should substitute them with your own.
Next up, download jQuery at: http://jquery.com/download/ and unpack it into your public folder.
For the server-side portion of dependencies, we need to download a library called Ratchet. I’ll explain
it shortly, but in the meantime we need to add it to our composer.json file: