Automatic Cigarette Smoke Detector

I’m a student aiming to create a prototype for a cigarette smoke detector gadget with automated warnings and an alert reporting engine. I will be using the MQ-2 gas sensor and nodeMCU V3 (ESP8266 12-e). I want this prototype to send notifications and images through Blynk application. This is my first project for our research in robotics and I don’t know where to start. Do you think this is possible? I’m really struggling since I’m also new to programming/coding.

Images of what?

No, without some C++ programming skills you won’t get very far.

Pete.

Images of the person smoking on school campus.

We’ve reached help from a previous robotics instructor. However, I’m not sure if he will really guide us with the coding.

Is nodeMCU limited to C++? I’ve searched and it said that it uses LUA

Where are these images going to come from?
The NodeMCU has no camera or image capture capabilities.

You can program the NodeMCU using a variety of different programming languages, but the library provided by Blynk uses C++

What level of Blynk subscription are you planning to sign-up for?

Pete.

Is it possible to attach a usb camera to it?

What level would you recommend, Pete?

No, the NodeMCU can’t operate in that way.
There are devices like the ESP32 CAM board that can run Blynk and have a camera attached, however it’s difficult to display those images in the Blynk app as they have to have a publicly resolvable url, which means uploading the images to a public hosting site to make them accessible to the Blynk server.

It depends on the number of devices, datastreams, users and functionality you require, and also which widgets you need.
You’ve not provided any info about this, so it’s impossible to make a recommendation.

Pete.

So it’s easier to opt for notifications only, rather than with images. That’s a bummer, I really wanted that T_T. But anyways thanks, Pete. You’re a great help! I’m sorry for asking too many questions. I’ll approach you again when we encounter problems in the process. Is that okay?

Twix: Cut your teeth on C++ with some of the Arduino project kits from Sunfounder. You can scrounge up your own parts, or order the parts from them. The code is all open-source and free. Once you can get going, you can see how to adapt your code to Blynk.
See this link: Sunfounder Projects

Cheers, Mike S.