IoT rapid prototyping laboratory setup
- Autores: Kimmo Karvinen, Tero Karvinen
- Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 34, no. 1, 2018, págs. 263-272
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
Even novice engineers and non-technical students can design and build an Internet of Things (IoT) prototype in four days.We present a setup for rapid IoT prototyping in a classroom, identify necessary skills and combine these to a workshop thatallows students to turn their ideas into prototypes. Our approach enables fast prototyping cycle, using a common and well-established development board and a computer. Arduino Uno is used for device prototyping and a Python programrunning on the same computer handles the needed Internet communications. A web server handles device and web clientconnectivity, logging and data monitoring. The method makes it possible to learn the needed basic skills in manageablesteps, allowing students to focus on the actual prototype instead of struggling with the wireless and Internetcommunication problems. After the prototyping phase, the device can be ported to inexpensive and small ESP8266based microcontroller. Compared to developing IoT prototypes directly with ESP8266, the setup presented is considerablyfaster. The whole process is based on free software tools which provides a possibility to utilize prototypes commercially,without a risk of a third party changing or discontinuing services. We arranged an experimental four-day workshop foruniversity students (n = 19) from diverse backgrounds and varying levels of technical skills. All teams successfully built aworking prototype based on their own ideas. Student self-assessment of programming skills was noticeably improvedduring the course. We later repeated the experiment with another group (n = 27) in a university of applied sciences, gettingsimilar results. Our results indicate that this method is effective for learning IoT prototyping skills in a short time.
