One ambition in the SOM project was to jointly develop teaching materials about sensors and IoT for secondary schools in Malmö and Lund. Some of Lund and Malmö's high school technology teachers gathered together with specialists from Sensative and Mobile Heights in the autumn of 2018 at Ekska huset in central Lund to discuss how important it is to create an understanding of sensors and IoT at an early age.

“Starting early is a great way to get women into technology. Ideally, you should start as early as primary school. This is where efforts are needed,” says Sofia Wilson from Pauliskolan in Malmö in an interview during the workshop. Sofia Wilson and her colleague Kenneth Ekstrand represented Pauliskolan in Malmö.

Johan Lindén from Mobile Heights and Ulrik Sjölin, Peter Bårmann and Max Asker from Sensative presented the test bed that has been built within the SOM project and the technology behind it.

“I saw that the teachers have a good base around technology and as I understood it, they are looking for three teaching packages in three levels: a basic package with pre-connected sensors, a package where students can build electronics and connect different things, and a level that deals with data analysis,” Johan Lindén said.

The SOM project offers a test bed where it is possible to test many different technologies for sensor transmission. The test bed can be used freely for tests at a pre-commercial stage and, of course, could also be used in teaching. LoRa and Narrowband IoT were already up and running during the workshop and more technologies will be connected.

In February 2019 it was time for a second meeting, this time also with specially interested students from Pauliskolan in Malmö.

“We have met before and discussed in broad terms what is needed to be able to teach with IoT gadgets in high schools by autumn,” Peter Bårmann, Sensative, told us. Now both teachers and students had to try out for themselves how easy it is to connect wireless sensors and get metrics to their computer. We also discussed how they can use the results in teaching. Along the way, at Sensative we also received a number of requests on our user interface, in order to facilitate its use at school.

What the teachers and students had to try was how to connect a sensor to the LoRa network, a radio network that is under development in both Malmö and Lund. The signals are sent via one of the cities' base stations to Sensative's IoT platform Yggio. The sensor values are translated into understandable information and can then be displayed in the user interface or refueled down to your own computer via the internet.

Teacher Ulf Jonsson from Hedda Andersson Gymnasium was one of the participants.

“It's good for me to be here and test how to do it, the next step for me is to figure out what the students should do so that they work in a meaningful context,” said Ulf Jonsson. IoT as a new, exciting technology fits well into our technology program. In addition, the cooperation with SOM and its constituent companies fits in with Hedda Anderssongymnasiet's profile of entrepreneurship and active cooperation with external parties in society and business.

Students saw usability as an important goal for working with sensors in school.

“The important thing is to understand what the technology can be used for and that you create something that can be used even after six months. It could be systems to measure air quality in classrooms or to have sensors to show where there is an available hall to study in, said one of the students.

The cooperation of the business community in Lund with the schools has advantages for both parties. Schools get access to new materials and contact experts who can show the latest in, for example, technological developments. Business gets other benefits — Peter Bårmann at Sensative gave some examples.

“Firstly, we benefit from testing our system against different types of users — teachers and students are some of them. Everyone does differently and may have different needs, and in addition can detect bugs that we have not seen. Another benefit of working with young people, is that we teach a new generation the technology behind IoT. After all, they are the ones who will develop the next generation of technologies and services. Perhaps some of the young people will work with us at Sensative, others at possible competitors. It doesn't really matter where they end up, because everyone who gets on with this will be involved in taking the development forward. We at Sensative do not provide our own services but have a platform that facilitates the development of services. Some of the students may develop these services, others may develop sensors to connect to the platform. They can come up with a range of applications that today we are not familiar with.

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Then how did it go?

Workshop on sensors and LoRa where teachers from high schools in both Malmö and Lund had to try to connect things themselves to give feedback on how this could be used in school.

In January 2021, educators and technology companies met again to see how to move forward. So here was the status of the schools:

Pauliskolan i Malmö: has come the furthest, with several completed and ongoing high school projects and projects within IoT/LoRa in various courses.

Sundsgymnasium in Vellinge: has acquired equipment and plans to start projects in several courses in the spring. Vellinge municipality will launch a LoRa network.

Hedda Anderssongymnasiet in Lund: has some equipment, which they were helped to get started about 1 year ago. Since then, the work has been down. Planning some simple lab work in Teknik Spec in spring 2021.

Polhemskolan in Lund: no concrete plans or activities; probes the terrain, would like to include IoT in various courses.

The group decided to create a common folder to share materials and information as well as to continue meeting during spring 2021.

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Facts subproject IoT in schools

The project is a sub-project of the SOM project is part of the Strategic Innovation Programme for the Internet of Things, IoT Sweden, which is funded by Vinnova. Anders Trana at Future by Lund was the project manager for the entire project. The project started on 1 September 2017 and ran until December 2020.

‍Project Time: 2018-09-01 - 2019-12-31

Partnerschappen: Sensative, Malmö City, Lund Municipality, Mobile Heights

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