SBIR Phase II: Bluebird: Integrated IoT for Educators and Learners

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project develops a low-cost gateway for hands-on exploration and advances knowledge of Internet of things (IoT) fundamentals for educators and learners. The overarching goal of the project is to transform the current STEM landscape with an alternative, future-forward approach to designing connected devices, and to introduce a wide range of students to creative applications of complex technologies. Cyber-physical systems - commonly referred to as the Internet of things - are paving new information pathways and will soon become the foundation of all trades from medicine to publishing. These concepts need to be taught in a STEM curriculum but today are rarely even mentioned in a K-12 classroom. The end-product will help fulfill the NSF mission of preparing youth to lead scientific innovation and hold successful careers by building the technologies of the future. This Phase II project develops an unparalleled educational tool enabling users to build simple yet full-cycle IoT systems. The product exposes the underlying architecture of IoT and leads users through the concepts of electronics, collaborative coding, data security, and social impact. The main technical innovations are: 1) the design of small footprint, low-cost hardware with onboard communications components; and 2) the accompanying software platform that supports collaborative coding with multiple networked devices, while maintaining the highest level of security and privacy features to protect student data. Currently, IoT systems in the EdTech market have several layers of custom-built technology and outdated components. This project offers widely accessible hardware and software IoT building blocks with full functionality. Students will devise projects that activate objects remotely by giving them attributes, emotions, and behaviors. Additionally, they will gain awareness of the social implications of their projects, as they consider how the objects' attributes change and respond within the scope of a network and invent cause-and-effect interactions in an end-to-end IoT system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.