Preparing students to design for the Internet of Things (IoT) has never been easier, only requiring small changes to the way engineering concepts are taught today. Everything you need is now readily available to facilitate a host of timely, relevant wireless applications and it's never too early to start incorporating into your lab exercises. As TI colleague Avner Goren is fond of saying, “The Internet of Things is being designed, architected and imagined as you read this.”
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Quickly preparing students to develop IoT systems is as simple as building on top of existing teaching methodologies, expanding foundational courses to incorporate the latest ideas and methods. Low-cost tools, easy-to-use software and readily available examples all make the job of teaching wireless connectivity easier, enabling students to explore low power, high integration, easy cloud connectivity and fast design time much earlier in their academic career. This, of course, does not preclude courses and topics in RF and networking for those wanting to gain deeper expertise.
Through TI’s LaunchPad ecosystem, educators can incorporate key facets of IoT system development into existing embedded systems and microcontroller labs simply by adding new exercises today. You don't even have to wait for the new semester to begin. The new SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® CC3100 BoosterPack provides an easy way to add Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity to both the MSP430F5529 USB LaunchPad and the TM4C Series LaunchPad Evaluation Kit. To help you get started in your course development TI is offering 100 free CC3100BOOST-CC31XXEMUBOOST-EXP430F5529LP kits for course development*. Apply today! Offer expires October 15, 2014.
You'll have your hardware, your software and here are some inspiring examples that are ready today for you to incorporate into your course and share with your students:
In his Embedded Systems class, Jon Valvano, ECE Professor at UT Austin, using the TM4C Series LaunchPad with SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® CC3100BoosterPack has created an IEEE802.11 lab where one microcontroller collects data, and a second microcontroller displays the data transmitted across a wireless network using UDP packets. Details, code example and lab exercise write up are available in his article: How and Why To Teach Wireless Connectivity in Embedded Systems Classes.
Using the MSP430F5529 USB LaunchPad Evaluation Kit coupled with the SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® CC3100 BoosterPack, our TI LaunchPad team has developed a cool application using Twitter, whereby students can quickly experience how a sensor network operates, importing data to monitor positive or negative sentiments. This novel application “listens” to Twitter via IBM's Node-RED, an open-source, visual programming tool, which provides the cloud component of the system. Details are available in this article: Listen in on Twitter via MQTT with TI’s new Wi-Fi® BoosterPack bundle
With these resources available, there is no reason to wait. Give your LaunchPad a Wi-Fi boost.
*Offer expires October 15, 2014. This offer is limited to the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Canada (excluding the province of Quebec), or Mexico (collectively the “Territory”). Offer is avilable only to educators and students. Students must be registered as a full- or part-time graduate or undergraduate student in engineering, in each case, at an accredited college or university with an engineering school in the Territory in order to be eligible to participate. Limited to one free CC3100BOOST-CC31XXEMUBOOST-EXP430F5529LP per person while supplies last. Limited quantities available. TI reserves the right to make revisions to, cancel or suspend this offer at any time.
