Overview of Arduino Internet of Things Courses
Arduinos are wonderful for prototyping wireless sensors and other gadgets that can be connected up to the internet not only via wireless but also via ethernet or USB. They are perfect for inventors and experimentors. Although recreating existing Arduino projects does not require a deep knowledge of electronics or programming, dreaming up completely new applications does. This was perfectly illustrated by a very senior IT executive of a major “fizzy drinks company” who ordered a bespoke long weekend training course (running from Thursday morning to Sunday afternoon) who said words to the effect that “it is quite easy to put together existing Arduino projects and sketches (Arduino programs are referred to as sketches). The only problem is that when I try and devise an application of my own I get completely stuck”. This is where our courses come in. Mostly these courses are scheduled on demand. If you can get together a group of Arduino enthusiasts then the costs per head will be much cheaper than those for a one to one course. Arduinos have also “grown up” of late. As well as the classical arduinos there are now arduino boards based on powerful 32 bit ARM Cortex M and PIC32 processors. These boards can be used for prototyping quite complex applications. We have even had inquiries from companies using the more advanced Arduino boards to prototype medical systems. Learning to program Arduinos can also provide a good introduction to both embedded C programming and to embedded C++ programming. Knowledge of embedded C++ is something which will be very much in demand in the coming years as embedded systems applications are developed on ever more powerful processors. Our Arduino courses range from introductory programming and tinkering courses through to more advanced courses covering developing with more powerful 32 bit processor based Arduino devices, programming and deploying Arduino based smart sensor networks and also include a course on developing hybrid applications based on combining Arduino devices with Android devices.