Displaying Your Coordinates with a GPS Module

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Contributors: Brandon J. Williams
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Introduction

What’s better than learning GPS? Learning it Qwiic-ly! Today we will be making a simple project to help get your feet wet with GPS. This project is quick and easy thanks to our Qwiic Connect System. The general idea is to push a button and see your latitude and longitude coordinates. We may be starting simple, but there is certainly room for more advanced users to modify and grow the project!

Software developers start with “Hello World!” and every hardware engineer remembers their first LED circuit, right? So let's fuse the ideas by creating a project that receives a GPS signal and outputs it to a screen for a user. Then we can bump it up by making it mobile. I’ve got just the thing in mind!

project parts image

Required Materials

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need the following materials. You may not need everything, depending on what you have. Add it to your cart, read through the guide, and adjust the cart as necessary.

Suggested Reading

If you aren't familiar with the Qwiic system, we recommend reading here for an overview.

Qwiic Connect System
Qwiic Connect System

We would also recommend taking a look at the following tutorials if you aren't familiar with them.

I2C

An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded communications protocols in use today.

Qwiic Micro OLED Hookup Guide

Get started displaying things with the Qwiic Micro OLED.

RedBoard Qwiic Hookup Guide

This tutorial covers the basic functionality of the RedBoard Qwiic. This tutorial also covers how to get started blinking an LED and using the Qwiic system.

SparkFun GPS Breakout (ZOE-M8Q and SAM-M8Q) Hookup Guide

The SparkFun ZOE-M8Q and SAM-M8Q are two similarly powerful GPS units but with different project applications. We'll compare both chips before getting each up and running.