IoT Sensor to Improve Learning and Focus in Classrooms

Our project 

Studies have shown that environmental conditions such as CO2, temperature and humidity exceeding certain thresholds can have a negative impact on the effective learning of students in classrooms. Our project lets the teacher know when classroom conditions are becoming unfavourable to learning and nudges them towards making changes to the classroom to help students learn more effectively. 

We worked with Airtame, a company that builds wireless screen-sharing devices for school and business settings headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Our inspiration 

The clients presented the project in an enticing manner from the beginning. This project also seemed like a good opportunity to work through and complete a proof-of-concept design from start to finish while involving multiple facets of electrical and computer engineering.  

Our biggest challenge 

The biggest challenge we faced was integrating our team members' work together into one functioning unit. We split ourselves up into sub-teams to satisfy hardware, firmware and user application requirements. But when it came time to consolidate our sub-teams' work into one working unit, we realized we had many slight inconsistencies to debug. This took more time than we had anticipated. 

What excited us most 

The experience of working with a group of bright and driven students in a simulated professional capacity! 

The most interesting/surprising thing we learned 

One surprising thing we learned throughout the project was just how much the availability of parts can fluctuate. We would spend a considerable amount of time designing printed circuit board revisions to a specific footprint for certain components, only to find, months later, when we wanted to make a second order, that the part was no longer in stock and would not be for the foreseeable future. For this reason, we selected several backup components that would satisfy the requirements of the project.