This lesson is designed to be flexible in showing how to implement the details. You can use technology resources from your STEM classrooms, depending on your own expertise in using those devices.

The simplest activity involves collecting information on light and heat usage in at least four classrooms in your school (or building). Room thermometers range in cost from about $4.00 to $10.00 each. The ScienceProjectStore.com has a 10-unit pack of digital thermometers for $49. Walmart offers a 10-unit pack of Learning Resources Boiling Point Thermometers (mercury) for $22.

More sophisticated data gathering can occur depending on the found resources in your school. These include:

• Electronic sensor kits such as SparkFun
• First Robotics League sensors
• Finch Robot from BirdBrain Technologies
• Arduino sensors

Procedure

The following assumes that (1) the only sensing technology you have at your disposal is room thermometers that must be read by hand, and (2) you can only devote a total of 2 class hours to this activity. Homework assignments, longer classroom experiences, and the use of other resources can expand these activities and are included in these instructions where appropriate.

Regardless of how simple or complex you make this lesson, please make sure you understand the technology you will be using.

For example, if your school has a First Robotics League, its members will have access to a variety of sensors depending on the team’s grade level. These students (as well as their coaches) can offer advice on how to actually program sensors so that data gathering can be automatic. Please bear in mind that if neither you nor your class have experience with a particular sensor, then stay with the basic, off-computer activity. On the other hand, if you, or colleagues or students, have expertise in robotics (First Robotics, Finch Robot) or microcontrollers (Arduino, electronics kits), then please do expand the basic procedure described here to meet your needs.

Birdbrain Technologies Hummingbird, the LilyPad for e-Fashion, and Raspberry-PI may also provide suitable ‘found resources’.

Finally, if you have App Inventor experience and appropriate Android phones or tablets, you can program those to sense temperature.

You may want to do some background reading on the details of how the Internet of Things. (See links, below.) The essential idea is that sensors, such as light and temperature sensors, send messages via the network backbone to devices that can change the state of the environment.

Procedure During First Hour

1. Watch the IEEE Career video with your students (also embedded above), then use Worksheet 1 (page 8 of PDF) to provide focus questions. Discuss the following important points in the video on Sohaib Sheikh:

a. Smart buildings can reduce energy consumption and enable a flexible and more productive environment.
b. Mr. Sheikh’s job is to focus on future trends and technologies to the experience of the building occupants.
c. Smart building technology is aware of the occupant as an individual, can analyze usage patterns, and provide occupancy data.
d. The technology creates a workplace in which it can perform functions such as recognizing who is entering the building, the worker’s preferred lighting and temperature, and what level of security access individuals are allowed.

2. Watch the remaining videos on ‘Smart Buildings’ and ‘The Internet of Things” and discuss how
a. sensors are critical to building smart building technology
b. network communication provides the backbone through which the Internet of Things processes information and makes decisions
c. algorithms (procedures) that respond to events generated by sensors are at the heart of how the Internet of things supports smart buildings.

3. Divide your class into teams of 3 – 5 members. Challenge them to discuss how smart building technology could improve their school using Worksheet 1, and the Student Resource sheet (page 6-7 of the PDF). At a minimum, have them consider how temperature could be controlled based on individual needs and preferences. The worksheet asks them to describe two smart technologies that will improve their school environment. Then ask them to identify what kind of sensors they will need, which other devices will be needed to send messages when the sensor detects a change, and what information will have to be given to the device that makes a change in the environment.

4. In the second hour, ask them to plan a test (simulation) of how their technology will work. If you have sensors other than thermometers, encourage your students to include these in the design if they know how to use them. If you only have thermometers, then choose carefully among potential sensors they may use. Or simply let them pick the sensors. If your students have programming expertise, challenge them to write a program to do the sensing, then report appropriate changes before the second session. However, remember that the challenge is in the design, not implementation. They may find the implementation task harder than they or you imagined. But encourage them to be imaginative in their design.

5. Spend the last 10 minutes of class having your teams give a ‘lightning talk’ explaining their idea.

Procedure During Second Hour

1. Using Worksheet 2 (page 9 of PDF), have students simulate the procedures they defined in the first hour. They should have notes on:
a. the smart technology
b. at least one device that sends messages based on sensor data
c. at least one device that receives messages and directs a reactive device, such as a thermostat or light switch, to make a change
d. rules for the method that will send the message
e. rules for the method that receives the message
f. reasonably precise information in the message

2. Give students about 20 minutes to experiment with their technology solutions. If you are using optional sensors, have them experiment with what kind of data is actually generated. ‘Play computer’ and walk through the directives in the methods they created. Depending on the self-motivation in your class:
a. have each team experiment with their solution and refine it
b. have two teams share solutions and ‘debug’ each other’s solutions
c. pick one solution from everyone’s first hours’ work and have all the teams experiment with that solution.

3. Leave time for a full class discussion about:
a. did the designs ‘work’ – what might need to be refined?
b. whether the designs actually proved to be useful – for example do you really need to have the temperature automatically detected?
c. what are the social and ethical ramifications of the internet of things? Are the solutions convenient and helpful, or somewhat controlling? (Have they created butlers or nagging parents?)
d. how could the technology be ‘gamed’, that is, how could a smart human thwart the sensed data – for example, by deliberately cooling down or heating up the thermometer.

Internet Connections