In this lesson we bring together a lot of the material from the first 26 lessons to create an instrument package that could be deployed in a demonstration project. We will wire wrap up an Arduino Nano, a Virtuabotix SD card reader, and the Adafruit Ultimate GPS to create a system that will track and log position and altitude, and save the data in a format that can be displayed on Google Earth.

You will want to place the Adafruit GPS, the SD Card Reader, and the Arduino Nano into a perf board. Then, you will want to carefully wire wrap the components as follows:
Connecting the Adafruit Ultimate GPS Unit to Arduino | |
GPS Pin | Arduino Pin |
Vin | 5V |
GND | GND |
RX | Pin 2 |
TX | Pin 3 |
Connecting the SD Card Reader | ||
Sd Card Reader Pin | Arduino Pin | Details |
GND | GND | Common Ground |
3.3 V – (NOT USED) | ||
+5 | 5V | Power |
CS | 4 | Chip Select |
MOSI | 11 | SPI Data |
SCK | 13 | Clock |
MISO | 12 | SPI Data |
GND | GND | Common Ground |
Now the code you developed in LESSON 26 should run on this prototype. The code creates a Google Earth friendly set of coordinates. Just put a KML wrapper on the coordinates as described in LESSON 26. Putting it all together, I took the system outside and walked around, and this is the data track I got.
