Chi Binh Le

As part of my efforts in STEM outreach, I recently ran a workshop for Year 9 and 10 IT students at a local high school. I wanted to present something that would be interesting and different from what they would normally have from their school classes so I settled on doing a simple IoT demonstration involving Raspberry Pi, Sense-HAT, and Node-RED. The Raspberry Pi is a great way to introduce students to computing and electronics engineering. The students I was presenting to had little or no programming experience so a visual system such as Node-RED enabled them to program simple tasks. Within 5 minutes of me presenting them the basics of Node-RED, they were quite comfortable using Node-RED and modifying the examples that I gave them. The workshop exercise was to extract sensor data (accelerometer, temperature, humidity, etc) and send it to an IoT platform. They could then view the data that was sent in a web browser in real time. Since we were using accelerometers, I encouraged the students to move the Raspberry Pi around while viewing the graph on the IoT platform to see how the values changed. I think having a computing system with physical sensors providing real time feedback made the workshop more interesting than just a programming exercise on a computer. The students seemed to enjoy it and I got a lot out of seeing their enthusiasm. IoT demonstrations are a great way to get the next generation interested in building things.

Another DDOS attack reportedly from IOT devices: http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/hacking/common-household-connected-devices-manipulated-by-malware-for-attack-on-worlds-biggest-websites/news-story/2170820dc7a293f8ff1d31dc89f13b64 Very apt that tomorrow's webinar is on IOT security.

Has something changed with the webinar registration? I used to be able to register for the webinars for free as an IEEE member. But when I tried to register for the last webinar, I was asked for credit card details for a $30 charge. I noticed that the charging information on the registration site is inconsistent. On the left side, it says that registration for EA/IET/IEEE members is free. On the right side, it says it is free for EA/IET members, and $30 for other society members. I sent an email to memberservices@engineersaustralia.org.au last week asking about this but have not received a reply. Could someone please clarify this situation?

IMHO... IOT is a user of technologies rather than a being a technology itself so there is no single set of standards governing IOT. Device developers choose technologies based on the constraints they operate under. There are two broad categories of standards in which to make choices: network access (comprising the physical and data-link layers) and application protocol. A lot of standards that have been mentioned previously have to do with network access (Bluetooth, Zigbee, wifi, etc). These standards can be used by IOT but were not designed specifically for IOT. At the application layer, there are some protocols that could come to dominate the field - whether that will be MQTT, REST API, or something else is yet to be seen. I don't see that any standards org is going to come out and dictate that IOT must use this or that particular access method. A comparable analogy would be that no one dictates to you how you access the Internet - you may have ADSL, cable, mobile broadband, or some other means. However, once you are connected, if you want to browse the web, you must have a client that speaks HTTP at the application layer. Standardisation of the application layer would make IOT devices more inter-operable, and should enable a company that runs an IOT network to move from one service provider to another.

I would have thought that driverless trains would be an ideal starting point for driverless vehicles in general. There are several advantages to trains: 1. They run on well defined tracks 2. There are fewer trains in a rail network than cars in the road network which simplifies the infrastructure/vehicle and inter-vehicle communications 3. There is already a standard for rail network communications (GSM-R) which could be extended to handle more situations 4. They don't have to contend with pedestrians