WSN Based Innovative Education Practice

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are a nascent technology that builds upon the recent decadepsilas advances in electrical and mechanical engineering including wireless communications, low-power embedded systems, MEMS-sensor design, network architectures and instrumentation applications. These networks promise a means by which to better monitor and understand environmental monitoring, precision agriculture and public health. The nature of WSNs motivates collaboration among researchers from diverse disciplines to leverage their skills to conduct meaningful experiments. An ongoing innovative education practice has been investigating the effectiveness of WSNs for monitoring environment signals in modern agriculture. Several undergraduate students were recruited as research assistants and given the responsibility of implementing and deploying a complete WSN solution. Using wireless sensor networks as a motivating technology, this paper documents our early experiences developing and deploying a WSN in the field. The novel aspect of this innovative practice was provided with a hands-on experience in which interdisciplinary team work, technical communications and hardware design is emphasized. Future undergraduate research areas are explored with suggestions on how WSN topics can permeate into undergraduate education.