Interacting with physical devices over the web

The educational experience of students in a Computer Engineering capstone design course can be greatly enhanced by providing a framework that enables students to design devices that are accessible over the web. The framework consists of inexpensive hardware and software that permits the connection of arbitrary devices to a web page. Remote users can then interact with the physical device through a form-based or Java-applet interface that can exploit data flow in both directions. Examples of devices that can be connected to the web range from positionable digital cameras to robots to distance-learning aids to home control devices. The contribution of this work is an inexpensive, bi-directional, public-domain method that does not require the insertion of special boards in the machine hosting the hardware nor modification to server software.