Innovative Remote Smart Home for Immersive Engagement

An openly accessible, remotely operated smart home will be demonstrated as a tool for students to learn about residential energy usage and environmental impacts. Specifically, the demonstration unit provides classrooms an engaging experience that teaches students about energy efficiency technologies and how their behavior will have an impact on energy usage and the environment. It is expected that as students become aware of and understand how various energy efficiency technologies work barriers to their adoption will be lowered. The use of a web accessible, remote laboratory dramatically reduces lab setup time and equipment cost/space requirements for educators. Special attention is given to the web based interface to ensure the system is easy to use and requires only a standard web browser in order to operate. The interface also includes a video link so the user can feel that they are working with real hardware in real time and not using a simulation or virtual facility. An associated website provides a self-scheduling tool to provide access to the system and a resource for related background information on smart grid and residential energy efficiency technologies. In addition, supporting instructional materials that coincide with NGSS standards are available via download

Remote Lab for Robotics Applications

This article describes the development of a remote lab environment used to test and training sessions for robotics tasks. This environment is made up of the components and devices based on two robotic arms, a network link, Arduino card and Arduino shield for Ethernet, as well as an IP camera. The remote laboratory is implemented to perform remote control of the robotic arms with visual feedback by camera, of the robots actions, where, with a group of test users, it was possible to obtain performance ranges in tasks of telecontrol of up to 92%.</span