Making Sensor Networks Accessible to Undergraduates Through Activity-Based Laboratory Materials

In 2003, the MIT Technology review magazine listed wireless sensor networks as one of "Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Change the World" [2]. Five years later, are wireless sensor networks ready for the undergraduate classroom? Our goal is to develop lab exercises that are suitable for activity-driven teaching of undergraduate students. We here describe our lab exercises and our experience class-testing them in the Winter quarter of 2008 at Portland State University.