Remote IoT Education Laboratory for Microcontrollers Based on the STM32 Chips

Abstract

The article describes the implementation of IoT technology in the teaching of microprocessor technology. The method presented in the article combines the reality and virtualization of the microprocessor technology laboratory. A created IoT monitoring device monitors the students’ microcontroller pins and sends the data to the server to which the teacher is connected via the control application. The teacher has the opportunity to monitor the development of tasks and student code of the program, where the functionality of these tasks can be verified. Thanks to the IoT remote laboratory implementation, students’ tasks during the lesson were improved. As many as 53% (n = 8) of those students who could improve their results achieved an improvement of one or up to two tasks during class. Before the IoT remote laboratory application, up to 30% (n = 6) of students could not solve any task and only 25% (n = 5) solved two tasks (full number of tasks) during the class. Before implementation, 45% (n = 9) solved one problem. After applying the IoT remote laboratory, these numbers increased significantly and up to 50% (n = 10) of students solved the full number of tasks. In contrast, only 10% (n = 2) of students did not solve any task.

Internet-of-Things Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment for STEM Education: A Review of Literature

“…The recent COVID pandemic underscores the need for the development of such remote laboratories so that students can continue to receive hands-on practical training without compromising their educational experience [131]. A small number of IoT educational practitioners have identified this need and have developed remote laboratories for IoT education [132]- [135]. The architecture for building a remote laboratory is built around a programmable single-board computer such as the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Lego Mindstorm builds, and Nucleo-64 [134].…”

“…Drivers are written in C++, Java, or Python, based on the programming language of choice and compatibility with the target single-board computer. In [132], the authors suggest that remote monitoring along with the remote laboratory improves the learning performance of the students since the teacher can monitor student work and code in real-time via commercially available remote access tools.…”

MEIoT 2D-CACSET: IoT Two-Dimensional Cartesian Coordinate System Educational Toolkit Align with Educational Mechatronics Framework

“…The previous provides IoT capabilities and enables hardware to be remotely accessed by students; however, other works, such as [23], propose enabling students' hardware to be accessed by the teacher. The solution is oriented to teach the use of microcontrollers.…”

Concept and Implementation of Measurement Systems for Stationary and Remote Testing of Sensors for Electrical and Non-Electrical Quantities

“…Replacing the physical system with its model leads to the creation of a virtual laboratory stand (VLS) [ 3 ]. Both approaches are widely used in engineering education for a variety of reasons, nowadays mainly because of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ], but also by fully online universities [ 11 ].…”