Smart Industry Project Using MakerBuddy

Industrial automation is one of the most practical applications of IoT. Modern factories use sensors to monitor environmental conditions, detect vehicles, automate access systems, and continuously display important information.

In this project, we built a Smart Industry / Smart Factory model using the MakerBuddy IoT Kit.

The project combines several sensors and actuators:

• HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor for vehicle detection
• SG90 servo motor for automatic gate control
• MQ2 gas/smoke sensor for monitoring gas and smoke levels
• DHT11 sensor for temperature and humidity
• LCD display for showing live sensor readings
• MakerBuddy Rule Engine for creating the complete automation visually

The interesting part is that the automation is created through the MakerBuddy Chrome Extension Rule Engine, rather than writing traditional Arduino-style control code.

How the Smart Industry System Works

The project contains three main automation systems.

1. Automatic Vehicle Gate

An HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor is installed near the factory entrance.

When a vehicle approaches the gate and comes within approximately 5 cm, MakerBuddy detects the distance and moves the SG90 servo motor to 90°, opening the barrier.

When the vehicle moves away and the detected distance becomes greater than 5 cm, the servo returns to 0°, closing the gate.

The automation can be represented as:

Vehicle approaches
       ↓
HC-SR04 measures distance
       ↓
Is distance < 5 cm?
   ↙              ↘
 YES              NO
  ↓                ↓
Servo 90°       Distance > 5 cm
  ↓                ↓
OPEN GATE       Servo 0°
                   ↓
               CLOSE GATE

2. Temperature and Humidity Monitoring

The DHT11 sensor continuously monitors environmental conditions inside the industrial area.

DHT11 provides:

Temperature
Humidity

This can be useful in industrial environments where temperature and humidity need to remain within suitable operating ranges.

In our current LCD rule, we display the temperature together with the gas reading.

Humidity is also available through MakerBuddy and can be displayed using the {humidity} wildcard if required.

3. Gas and Smoke Monitoring

The MQ2 sensor monitors combustible gases and smoke in the model.

The sensor value can be used to indicate changes in the surrounding air and potentially detect abnormal gas or smoke conditions.

For classroom demonstrations, it is best to describe this as a gas/smoke sensor level unless the MQ2 has been specifically calibrated for a particular gas concentration in ppm.

The MakerBuddy Rule Engine exposes the sensor reading using:

{gas}

which allows the value to be displayed directly on the LCD.

Components Required

For this project we used:

MakerBuddy IoT Kit
HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor (Included in Kit)
SG90 Servo Motor (Included in Kit)
MQ2 Gas/Smoke Sensor (Included in Kit)
DHT11 Temperature & Humidity Sensor (Included in Kit)
16x2 LCD Display (Included in Kit)
USB / suitable power source
Factory model made from cardboard / foam board
Road and barrier model
Computer running the MakerBuddy Chrome Extension

Step 1 — Build the Smart Industry Model

We first created a miniature industrial environment containing:

• Factory buildings
• Industrial chimneys
• Road
• Vehicle entrance
• Automatic barrier
• Environmental monitoring station
• LCD information display

The HC-SR04 sensor was positioned near the entrance so that it could detect an approaching vehicle.

The SG90 servo motor was connected to the barrier arm.

The MQ2 and DHT11 sensors were positioned around the factory monitoring area.

Step 2 — Connect the Sensors to MakerBuddy

Connect the supported sensors and actuators to the MakerBuddy IoT Kit.

The system contains:

HC-SR04 → Distance
SG90    → Gate movement
MQ2     → Gas / smoke level
DHT11   → Temperature + humidity
LCD     → Live readings

After connecting the hardware, open the MakerBuddy Chrome Extension and connect to the MakerBuddy IoT controller.

Once connected, the sensors and actions become available inside the Rule Engine.

Step 3 — Create the Open Gate Rule

Create a new rule and name it:

Open Gate

Select:

Loop Mode:
Condition

Then configure the condition:

Sensor:    Distance (HC-SR04)
Operator:  Less than (<)
Threshold: 5

Now create the action:

Action: Servo Move
Value:  90
Delay:  1000 ms

The resulting logic is:

IF Distance < 5 cm
THEN Servo = 90°

When a vehicle approaches the entrance, the barrier automatically opens.

Step 4 — Create the Close Gate Rule

Create another rule named:

Close Gate

Select:

Loop Mode:
Condition

Configure:

Sensor:    Distance (HC-SR04)
Operator:  Greater than (>)
Threshold: 5

Configure the action:

Action: Servo Move
Value:  0
Delay:  1000 ms

The rule becomes:

IF Distance > 5 cm
THEN Servo = 0°

Once the vehicle moves away from the ultrasonic sensor, the barrier closes automatically.

Step 5 — Display Temperature and Gas Levels

Next we created a continuously running monitoring rule.

We named the rule:

TG Levels

and selected:

Loop Mode:
Forever

This causes the Rule Engine to continuously update the monitoring information.

Add an action:

Action:
LCD Display

Select:

LCD Display Mode:
Custom Text

For LCD Line 1 enter:

Temp= {temp}

For LCD Line 2 enter:

Gas Level= {gas}

MakerBuddy automatically replaces the wildcards with live sensor readings.

The LCD therefore displays something similar to:

Temp= 28
Gas Level= 15

The Rule Engine also supports sensor wildcards such as:

{temp}
{humidity}
{ds18b20}
{light}
{gas}
{soil}
{distance}
{pot}
{motion}
{button}

This makes it possible to create many different monitoring dashboards without manually programming LCD communication.

Adding Humidity to the Display

Because the DHT11 also measures humidity, another display arrangement could be:

Temp={temp}
Hum={humidity}

Complete Automation Logic

The final Smart Industry system works like this:

SMART INDUSTRY
                          │
        ┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
        │                 │                 │
    HC-SR04             DHT11              MQ2
        │                 │                 │
Detect Vehicle       Temperature         Gas/Smoke
        │             + Humidity           Level
        │                 │                 │
        ▼                 └──────┬──────────┘
   Distance < 5?                 │
     ↙       ↘                   ▼
   YES       NO             LCD DISPLAY
    │         │
    ▼         ▼
Servo 90°   Servo 0°
    │         │
OPEN GATE  CLOSE GATE

Why Use MakerBuddy?

Traditional implementations of a project like this typically require students to work with:

GPIO pin configuration
Breadboards
Jumper wiring
Arduino libraries
Programming syntax
Conditional statements
Servo libraries
LCD libraries
Sensor libraries
Compilation
Debugging

MakerBuddy moves much of this interaction into a visual Rule Engine.

Instead of writing code such as:

if (distance < 5) {
    servo.write(90);
}
if (distance < 5) {
    servo.write(90);
}

students can visually create:

Distance < 5
     ↓
Servo Move
     ↓
90°
Distance < 5
     ↓
Servo Move
     ↓
90°

This makes concepts such as sensors, conditions, thresholds, automation, inputs, outputs and IoT logic easier to demonstrate in STEM education.

MakerBuddy is also an open-source project, allowing educators, researchers and developers to inspect and extend the platform.

Applications

The same concepts demonstrated in this model can be applied to:

• Smart factories
• Automated parking entrances
• Warehouses
• Industrial safety monitoring
• Environmental monitoring
• Restricted-area access systems
• Smart buildings
• Factory automation education
• STEM and IoT classrooms

Possible Future Improvements

The Smart Industry project could be expanded with:

Gas threshold alarms
Buzzer alerts
RGB warning indicators
Automatic exhaust fan
Cloud monitoring
Historical sensor graphs
Remote notifications
Multiple factory entrance gates
Vehicle counting
RFID employee access
Machine temperature monitoring
Predictive maintenance
AI-based anomaly detection

For example:

IF Gas Level > Safety Threshold
THEN
    Buzzer ON
    RGB RED
    Exhaust Fan ON

That would extend the model from simple monitoring into a more complete industrial safety system.

Conclusion

This Smart Industry project demonstrates how multiple IoT technologies can work together in a single industrial automation system.

Using the MakerBuddy IoT Kit and Rule Engine, we created an automated vehicle gate using HC-SR04 and SG90, continuously monitored temperature using DHT11, monitored gas/smoke levels using MQ2, and displayed live sensor information on an LCD.

The project is particularly useful for demonstrating IoT, industrial automation, sensors, actuators, conditional logic and STEM concepts in a visual and practical way.

MakerBuddy: https://www.makerbuddy.ccCurriculum: https://www.makerbuddy.cc/curriculumDocumentation: https://www.makerbuddy.cc/documentation