COTS embedded Internet platform and Blimp UAV for educational purposes

Easy, available and inexpensive modules like digital radio or modems and sensors allow the practical understanding of communication technology. We present a Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) Internet platform for teaching digital and wireless communications. Our experience showed that teaching embedded systems by building a realistic system is most convincing for students as it shows theory applied and engages students better then a more theoretical approach. We created an Internet platform development environment and a Blimp UAV that introduced wireless and digital communication systems, realtime OS and embedded networking concepts.