UV Radiation: good and bad

UV (which stands for Ultra Violet) is high energy and short wavelength electro-magnetic radiation just past the violet end of the visible spectrum. UV is what gives you vitamin D and a tan... and a sunburn... and, well, skin cancer.  It's a case of a little being ok but too much being pretty bad. Like bacon.

Keeping your cool

You can do some things to reduce your UV exposure while still enjoying the nice weather (and getting that all-important vitamin D). Here are a few:

• wear long sleeves,
• wear a hat, and
• use adequate strength sunscreen.

You can get an idea of what to do by checking the UV forecast for your area. That will give you an indication of what the relative strength of the UV radiation will be. In the US, the EPA makes this information available online at https://enviro.epa.gov/enviro/uv_hourly?zipcode=10014. Note that you need to change the zipcode argument to reflect where you are.

They also provide that information via an API with multiple response formats, one of which is formatted as JSON data.

In this project we'll use that to fetch current UV index data and display it on a PyPortal screen.

Parts

Choose your USB cable color and length