Microcontroller Based Platforms For STEM Education

摘要

Use of microcontroller in electronic kits has been popular in STEM education. Students around the age of 14 to 15 years old learn coding skills and basic electronic principles from practical projects, raising their interests to become future scientists or engineers. In this paper, we present our past IoT project working with a school with the theme of smart campus. Students received demonstration and gained hands-on experience with IoT devices in less than a total of five hours of lessons within a month-long period. We also introduce a microcontroller based platform offering multiple features on an Enhanced Shield. Key advantage of this new platform lies in a single serial bus structure facilitating easy addition of accessories such as motors and sensors in a daisy chain fashion. Each accessory is software defined for control purposes. The new platform will be implemented in an upcoming robotic car project. Students will be taught skills of motor control and artificial intelligence feature of color recognition.