First I’d like to give a thank you to all the attendees of ioBridge’s DCWEEK Internet of Things Workshop. It was a great turnout even though it was one of the last events of a long week.
We accomplished all of our goals:
- Explain to people what the “Internet of Things” is
- Have everyone realize where it is in their everyday lives
- Understand just how BIG it is going to be
- Get people to experiment first hand with IoT
- Get involved with the Washington, DC tech scene and contribute to DCWEEK 2011
- Get people giddy like school children when they are controlling their own “Things” on the Internet!
All the attendees were very involved in the presentation. It was great to see the wheels start to turn as they learned about basic digital and analog inputs/outputs. Once they understood those concepts they started to see how seemingly complex devices like a touch screen could be broken down in to it’s basic inputs and outputs.
The hands on part of the workshop was very rewarding and we thought everyone had a lot of fun. We brought ioBridge Dev Kits that include IO-204 and multiple buzzers, temperature sensors, buttons, servo motors and LCD screens for the attendees to play with. Four separate groups got to go through the module setup process and begin interacting with their items through the Internet. Once they got that down, it started to get a little creative.
One group used a combination of the temperature sensor and the buzzer to have a buzzer go off when a certain temperature was reached. They monitored all the inputs and outputs right from the Internet. Another group took it a step further and had their IO-204 tweet once a certain temperature was reached. Once they got that down, they used a simple button to trigger a tweet. Sort of like a motion detector tweeting when someone came into a room.
Here are some of the photos of everyone in action:
