Great principles in computing curricula
Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
MoteLab: a wireless sensor network testbed
IPSN '05 Proceedings of the 4th international symposium on Information processing in sensor networks
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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become an ideal area of study to provide a wide range of applications for Computer Science and Engineering courses. However, the complexities and extensive background knowledge requirement of WSNs make the design of suitable WSN courses a non-trivial task. The principle that learning must be grounded in experience necessitates a suite of suitable WSN applications for students to gain hands-on experience in order to deepen their understanding of WSNs. In this paper, focusing on using WSN data collection and dissemination as examples to provide technology-based education and training, we present a suite of practical WSN applications based on TinyOS 2.x (the dominant second generation operating system for low power WSNs) and MicaZ motes. Our presented suite ranges from the easy Listen-BaseStation-BlinkToRadio one-hop data collection application to the complex Octopus multi-hop data collection and dissemination application. These applications can provide students with a deep understanding of WSNs and therefore intrigue their interests to achieve effective learning.