So I recently placed my order for the Spark and a Raspberry Pi. I wanted to be prepared with any additional items I may need to get everything up and running. I am very new at this so help would be appreciated. I’m guessing some sort of display and keyboard for the Raspberry Pi? Also what kind of connection do I need to connect them? Thanks
Probably don’t need a permanent screen and keyboard for your pi. during setup i just plugged mine into the TV and had the keyboard for that too. Once i’d setup the wireless card it can run headless so you can ssh to it.
For the raspberry pi to be able to connect to wifi, is the only thing needed a wifi dongle? Is that also the antenna or is a separate antenna needed?
You just need the dongle. Most are tiny little things that do not require an additional large antenna although im not sure if it helps with range or not tbh. My brewpi pi has only a usb wifi dongle and the usb cable connected to the arduino. The arduino has the brewpi shield attached which is attached to the rest of the brewpi kit. sensors attach to the shield, ssr’s attach to the shield (or probably something else attached to the shield on the newer ones, mine is old). And that’s all you need!
You can have a separate power pack to power the arduino if you like but it will run from the power through the usb cable from the pi.