Using Actors for the Internet of (Lego) Trains
summary
Built a remote actor control system for Lego trains running on Raspberry Pi A+ with Wi‑Fi and IR transmitter, camera, RFID, speaker, automated switches, NeoPixel LEDs and Particle Photons; code uses Scala, Akka, Akka HTTP and AngularJS. Remote actors replace REST for inter-Pi messaging and show big perf gains in tests: one student measures ~600 users for REST versus ~3,300 for remote actors; jar sizes ~8MB local, ~11–12MB remote, +~10MB when adding HTTP. Hardware works but hits A+ memory limits, flaky conference Wi‑Fi, RFID range and battery quirks, and a few Pis get damaged.
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chapters (28)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:30Why this project
- 4:55Architecture
- 6:34Wireless
- 7:30Remote Control
- 9:09Components
- 9:50Camera
- 10:53Track switches
- 11:38Ferris wheel
- 12:24Particle cloud
- 14:10Demo
- 19:00Actors
- 19:34Remote Actors
- 20:22Message Protocol
- 21:43Advantages
- 22:19HP
- 22:44Size
- 23:24Performance
- 27:05Challenges
- 27:58Raspberry Pi A
- 28:42Batteries
- 29:04RFID
- 29:38Wifi
- 30:06Troubleshooting
- 30:34Documentation
- 31:35Time
- 34:40code
- 35:30Raspberry Pi OS
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