Internet toasters as a capstone design project

One of the first devices connected to the Internet for remote control in 1990 was a (literal) toaster. Since then, the term "Internet toaster" has come to denote any small device connected to the Internet, particularly for the purposes of remote control or monitoring. Such devices are a topic of much current research and development. The vision of the Internet as a home control network has captured people's imaginations. The design of such devices makes for an ideal capstone design project. Such projects can emphasize hardware and/or software, can involve detailed study of network protocols or not, can be done with 8-bit microcontrollers or 80x86 embedded PCs, and can be as small or large as the environment requires. In addition, they can easily be multidisciplinary. This paper presents guidelines for instructors on how to choose and implement such a design project, along with an example of one such project - the Internet thermostat, which was a capstone design project at Bob Jones University in 1999.