What this book covers

Chapter 1, Get Started with BeagleBone , tells us about the hardware specification of the BeagleBone board, how to set up a BeagleBone board to boot up with a Linux Operating System on microSD card and log in to the Linux command shell from a remote computer, and how to program on Python software running on the BeagleBone board.

Chapter 2, Circuit Fundaments and GPIO, talks about the working of basic electronic circuits including switches, LEDs, and battery followed by GPIO pins on the BeagleBone board and elaborates on how you can use these GPIO pins to switch LED status using a python program.

Chapter 3, Introduction to Physical Computing Systems, helps you understand the basic structure of physical computing systems with real world examples, build your own physical computing system using a switch as an input and LED as the output device connected to BeagleBone board which works based on the python program that you write.

Chapter 4, Real-Time physical computing systems Using BeagleBone Board, talks about analog sensors using LM35 temperature sensor as an example and works on a more advanced physical computing project using BeagleBone board interfaced with an LM35.

Chapter 5, Connecting Physical Computing Systems to the Internet, teaches you how to connect BeagleBone board to Wi-Fi networks, cloud storage and upload sensor data from BeagleBone board to cloud in real-time, and view the trends on the cloud software with time stamps. Build your first IoT.

Chapter 6, Home Automation Using BeagleBone, tells you about how to set up your own web server on a BeagleBone board using a Python and Flask framework and how to use the same to control home appliances using an AC relay board interfaced with BeagleBone board from a PC or your mobile phone connected to the internet, similar to any other IoT Home Automation system.

Chapter 7, Working with Images Using Computer Vision, teaches you how to interface a USB camera with BeagleBone board and how to OpenCV to capture images and work with them using Python.

Chapter 8, Home Security Systems Using BeagleBone Black, teaches us how to use SMTP with python to send emails, learn about PIR sensors and motion detection, build a smart intruder alert system by interfacing PIR sensor with BeagleBone board to detect motion, and use OpenCV to capture images and email them.

Chapter 9, Exploring Robotics, helps you understand the basic structure of robotic systems, their working and application in different areas using real life examples. It also helps us learn about differential drive robots

Chapter 10, Building Your Own Robot, teaches us about DC Motors, Motor Driver IC L293D and control of DC motors from Python on BeagleBone Black using this Motor Driver IC, live streaming of video on local server from USB camera connected to BeagleBone board, and building your own Tele Controlled Robot with live video streaming.