IoT sensor design

[Robert LeSuer]

I have been playing around with various ways to implement remote sensing with inexpensive sensors - particularly home made sensors and those that can be purchased from Vernier.  Presently, I'm looking at ways to use remote sensors to facilitate kitchen chemistry style projects.  What I envision is a platform that connects a sensor (lets say a pH meter) to a web-based interface that allows others to view the data being collected as well as access data from completed experiments.  In it's most basic form, an instructor could perform an experiment with the data being posted in real time for students on the other end of a virtual meeting to view, download and analyze.  Students could also have access to their own connected devices and post their data on web for either the instructor to view and assess or peers to aggregate and develop more enriching group-oriented projects.  

I've identified a few key design challenges that warrant attention prior to moving forward with the project, and if something of this nature is of interest to you, I would appreciate your feedback.

1. What level of turn key or plug and play is required for you and your students to embrace a technology such as this?  Is the idea of developing a platform for sharing data from connected devices (software) or putting the electronics together (engineering-like) a meaningful way to bring an interdisciplinary component to your teaching or would it be more trouble than it's worth?

2. What sort of learning environment do YOU envision with web-enabled/connected/remote sensors?  I outlined my vision above, but there are undoubtedly others.

3. How many sensors?  There is discussion on how current solutions only allow access to one sensor at a time.  What is a realistic number of sensors that one applies simultaneously to a single experiment?

4. How important is it to have a battery-powered device?

5. If technology such as this is adopted in your classroom, how likely would it be incorporated into your undergraduate laboratory?  How much quality assurance/quality control do you expect from a device that is initially designed for teaching?

BoB

[Robert Belford]

Hi Bob,

This is a great post and I think you are up to some exciting stuff.  We will be teaching an online lab in a couple of weeks and are going to try and stream some data on a calorimeter experiment, I just picked up five Gikfun DS18B20 Temperature probes for $12 from Amazon and if we can't get those to work I will use Vernier Probes and their Go!Link.  It is amazing how cheap these are.  We were going to stream the data to a Google Sheet, and let the students observe that in real time, here is a link to the LibreText module on that.  I'll add some thoughts to your key challenges below

I've identified a few key design challenges that warrant attention prior to moving forward with the project, and if something of this nature is of interest to you, I would appreciate your feedback.

1. What level of turn key or plug and play is required for you and your students to embrace a technology such as this?  Is the idea of developing a platform for sharing data from connected devices (software) or putting the electronics together (engineering-like) a meaningful way to bring an interdisciplinary component to your teaching or would it be more trouble than it's worth?

I could see both, for different courses.  We are creating an Intercollegiate Course in LibreText on IOT with the vision of running like a CHED CCCE OLCC, which would have the later orientation (while also teaching python).  But I could envision an online lab program that is plug and play, where students are shipped RPis and probes with preloaded software, and the focus is on learning chemistry (or whatever the discipline).

 

2. What sort of learning environment do YOU envision with web-enabled/connected/remote sensors?  I outlined my vision above, but there are undoubtedly others.

I think you vision is right on.  There are some hands on experiments (like calorimetry) that the students could be streaming data to an instructor dashboard (or just Google sheets within a Google classroom, or whatever LMS the school uses), but also, there can be equipment for which it is not practical to send to students, and then the data could be streamed to them.  So I see times for both modes (one to many, and many to one).

 

3. How many sensors?  There is discussion on how current solutions only allow access to one sensor at a time.  What is a realistic number of sensors that one applies simultaneously to a single experiment?

Vernier's devices typically have 4 analog and 2 digital channels, which is what they opted for, and they have years of experience.

 

4. How important is it to have a battery-powered device?

I don't think this is required for kitchen chemistry labs, but would be required for field/environmental types of lab activities.  It seems to me that cell phone battery packs would work (that is what I use to run my iiab pi).

 

5. If technology such as this is adopted in your classroom, how likely would it be incorporated into your undergraduate laboratory?  How much quality assurance/quality control do you expect from a device that is initially designed for teaching?

I think that getting bad data is sort of critical to the teaching experience, as part of what you are trying to do is get students to think, and identify the issues with their data.  I am going to make a second post to this group on the topic of labs and supplemental instruction as I noted a group was developed about that.  But there are many facets to a lab, learning the techniques/technologies, validating your understanding of the concepts, but there is also the QA/QC and data provenance aspects, and good scientists need to understand the nature of data.  So in my opinion, getting students to think about data is as important as the data itself.

I have taught several dual graduate/undergraduate courses, and there is often a clear difference in how those two cohorts see data.  The undergraduate students are much more inclined to believe the data, even if it is nonsense, while grad students are better able to grapple with data issues.  In any case, these can be teachable moments.

Cheers,

Bob B.

 

BoB

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Dr. Robert E. Belford
Professor
UALR Department of Chemistry
501 569-8824

https://ioct.tech