An immersive week for undergraduate engineering students for developing iot competencies a case study at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico

Abstract

Emerging technologies are rapidly and deeply impacting the companies' organization, so it is necessary to develop new competencies to face the digital transformation. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that provides a thematic umbrella that allows educators to develop engineering skills focused on designing electronic devices, programming, connectivity, and the use of platforms in the cloud, among others. This paper describes the experience called “Development of monitoring and control systems for the Internet of Things (IoT)” that took place during the i-Week 2018 at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus. The engineering students involved in this activity received training on Sigfox and LoRaWAN technologies from external companies and develop an IoT solution following the PBL (Project-Based Learning) methodology, so the students achieved a global vision about industrial and academic IoT design. Each multidisciplinary team developed a functional prototype for solving a specific real problem using Sigfox and LoRaWaN. Also, an executive report and a testimonial video were the deliverables evaluated. The results of implementing the i-Week are positive because IoT skills, problem-solving and collaborative work competencies were achieved by each student. In addition, an excellent qualitative result was the extraordinary impression of the companies about the technological goals achieved by the students during the i-Week. Besides, their communication skills and their technology integration capacity were developed.