Rapid Prototyping Internet of Things Applications for Augmented Objects: The Tiles Toolkit Approach

Abstract

Designing and prototyping for IoT have historically required a diverse range of skills and a set of tools that individually supported only a fraction of the whole process, not being designed to work together. These tools usually require a certain level of proficiency in design methods, programming or electronics, depending on the phase addressed. Previous works on the Tiles Ideation toolkit and the RapIoT software framework demonstrated how the design phase can be democratized and how a simple programming paradigm can make coding for IoT a task accessible to non-experts. With this work we present and evaluate the process and the technologies involved in the programming and prototyping phase of an IoT application. The Tiles Square and the Tiles Temp are introduced, these two electronic devices complement and support IoT prototyping. They are designed to work in conjunction with the Tiles Ideation toolkit and are supported by the RapIoT software framework, allowing non-experts to augment and program everyday objects. We illustrate the potential of this approach by presenting the results obtained after workshops with 44 students. We conclude by discussing strengths and limitations of our approach, highlighting the lessons learned and possible improvements.

Using gamification and IoT-based educational tools towards energy savings - some experiences from two schools in Italy and Greece

“…We gave a questionnaire to students to assess their satisfaction and engagement in the activity. The questionnaire is shown in Table 3 and was derived taking into account similar surveys in related work (e.g., Glaroudis et al 2018;Gianni et al 2018). Answers were given on a Likert scale (1-5).…”

“…Porter et al (2017) argue that the lack of students' engineering experiences in primary and secondary education is in part due to the fact that very few teachers have an engineering/technology background and that the collaboration with universities and professionals would help coping with this issue. Along this direction, Gianni et al (2018) reported on the usage of a toolkit (Mora et al 2017) for rapid IoT application prototyping with a group of high school students. In a related manner, Katterfeldt et al (2018) proposed the application in schools of a plugand-play toolkit together with some suggestions for successful implementation of activities in high schools.…”

Experiences from Using Gamification and IoT-Based Educational Tools in High Schools Towards Energy Savings

“…The organization of the questionnaire is provided in Table 2 and the statements were derived also taking into account analogous surveys in related work (e.g. [14] [13]. Answers were given in a Likert scale form (1)(2)(3)(4)(5).…”

“…Porter et al [20] argue that the lack of students' engineering experiences in primary and secondary education is in part due to the fact that very few teachers have an engineering/technology background and that the collaboration with universities and professionals would help coping with this issue. Along this direction, Gianni et al [13] report on the usage of a toolkit [17] for rapid IoT application prototyping with a group of high school students. Analogously, [16] proposed the application in schools of a plug-and-play toolkit together with some suggestions for successful implementation of activities in high schools.…”

Bridging the gap between school and out-of-school science: A Making pedagogical approach

“…Gianni [15] reports on the usage of a toolkit [34] for rapid IoT application prototyping with a group of high school students. Mavroudi [5] has expend the work to lower secondary school students that undertook the role of designers of IoT applications in the contexts of education and smart cities.…”