Posts | Comments

Planet Arduino

Archive for the ‘Explore IoT Kit’ Category

A year after the Arduino Education Explore IoT Kit launched globally, we’ve been improving the content of the kit and have made a few tweaks and upgrades!

Since launch, we’ve been working with educators around the world on how we can make the kit even better (because everything can be better, right?) and the invaluable feedback they’ve given us has led to the following updates:

– An introduction to the tools
– Software IDE
– Web editor
– Libraries
– IoT Cloud
– Troubleshooting

  • Simpler sign-in functionality
  • Explanations of the benefits of teaching the Internet of Things to high school students right now

We’ve also dived deeper into how the Explore IoT Kit can help students get career-ready, with new examples and illustrations that show how the kit helps develop the future skills the world will need, especially in the IT sector.

Innovate, create, transform: Take your first steps in building internet-connected objects and explore the Internet of Things with Arduino Education.

The post The Explore IoT Kit gets a mini-makeover appeared first on Arduino Blog.

By popular demand, we are pleased to announce that it’s now possible to buy the Arduino MKR IoT Carrier. Originally forming a key part of the Arduino Oplá IoT Kit, we’ve responded to our community to make the carrier available on it’s own, thus enabling you to benefit from having a bunch of sensors, actuators and a display all featured on the one board — making it quicker and easier to take your IoT projects to the next level.

Featuring a large set of built-in sensors and actuators as well as a useful color display, the carrier lets you focus on prototyping your IoT ideas right away by saving on the hassle of wiring and soldering these components.  

The carrier can become a WiFi, LoRa, NB-IoT or GSM-compatible device by seamlessly connecting to any MKR family board. Building a user interface for these boards is easy with the embedded color OLED screen, five capacitive touch buttons, and the five RGB LEDs. The integrated sensors (temperature, humidity, pressure, RGBC light, gesture and proximity) allow you to map the environment around the carrier, and should you need to capture any other data there are over 100 additional Grove sensors that can easily be connected directly to the carrier.

Here’s are quick demo of the carrier’s capabilities! (Special shout out to Mirko Pacioni and Fill Connesso for creating this demo.)

Capture and store all the data locally on an SD card, or connect your MKR family board to the IoT Cloud for real-time data captured, storage, and visualization.

The MKR IoT Carrier features:

  • Round OLED display
  • Five RGB LEDs
  • Five capacitive touch buttons
  • On-board sensors (temperature, humidity, pressure, RGBC light, gesture and proximity)
  • Buzzer
  • IMU (Three-axis accelerometer sensor and three-axis gyroscope sensor)
  • Two 24V relays
  • MicroSD card holder (SD card not included)
  • Plug-and-play Grove connectors for external sensors — two analog and one digital (I2C)
  • 18650 Li-ion rechargeable battery holder (battery not included)

The MKR IoT Carrier is now available to purchase from the Arduino online store for €48 / $57.60 — find infinite possibilities for all your IoT projects

Interested in learning how to build IoT projects, then we have the perfect choice of kits for you, both featuring the MKR IoT Carrier. The Arduino Explore IoT Kit is the ideal kit to learn about the Internet of Things and what you can do with it, while the Arduino Oplá IoT Kit is great for experiencing the benefits of IoT at home or in the office with eight out-of-the-box IoT projects controlled on the Arduino IoT Cloud

If you are looking for a solution to learn and experience the Internet of Things, there are two popular choices: the Explore IoT Kit and the Oplà IoT Kit . But which one should you pick? Here‘s a handy guide.

The kits share a very similar set of hardware and are in the same price range; moreover, they both offer a free one-year subscription to the Arduino Create MKR Plan, Arduino premium coding platform.

That is where the similarities end though! The Oplà IoT Kit is designed for individuals to use to add connectivity to devices around the home or in the office. Whilst the Explore IoT Kit is an educational kit developed for students to learn how to control objects remotely using digital dashboards and learn the fundamentals of the Internet of Things. Moreover, they offer different online platforms, different projects, in other words, a completely different experience. 

We’ve created a super simple guide to help you decide which is the right kit for you and your projects! 

Both kits include: 

And now, let’s explore  what you can do with the Explore IoT Kit and the Oplà IoT Kit

Explore IoT Kit

The Explore IoT Kit teaches you fundamental concepts to control objects remotely.

This educational kit includes 10 online student activities that adopt a learning-by-doing approach.               

Step-by-step, students will acquire knowledge by constructing fully functional solutions including experiments, challenges, and building real-life applications. Students also learn to control objects remotely using a digital dashboard – the Arduino IoT Cloud. 

Oplà IoT Kit

The Oplà IoT Kit adds connectivity to your home, office appliances, and applications. 

This kit comes with a complete set of 8 Internet of Things projects ready to turn everyday appliances into ‘smart appliances’ e.g. thermostat.

Suitable for more advanced users so they can create their own connected devices and IoT applications through the open programmable platform providing ultimate control. 

This week we are launching our  Arduino Explore IoT Kit, which allows high school and college students to take their first steps in building connected devices. Educators can make a complex subject simple – explore the Internet of Things right now with Arduino Education. 

Aimed at the beginner,  there is a complete set of easy to follow online projects providing students with a  gateway into the digital world of connected objects and how people work together.

The kit comes complete with a complimentary 12 months subscription to the Arduino Create Maker plan, meaning it’s quicker and easier than ever to learn how to monitor, manage and control devices using the cloud – with the new Arduino IoT Cloud Remote app you can now do this ‘on the go’ via your mobile.

We recently spoke to Sara Willner-Giwerc, (a PhD candidate at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, US) about her amazing work using the Internet of Things in education – helping to show just how useful the new Explore IoT Kit will be.

“By leveraging the Internet of Things, students are able to build more powerful systems that are no longer limited to only the resources they physically possess. This technological capability presents a cool opportunity for students to experience how they can be more powerful when they connect and collaborate with others than they can be on their own. “

“Especially now, in this time of social distancing and remote learning, the ability to communicate with devices that aren’t physically near us has become even more essential than it was previously. I’m really excited about the idea of using IoT to help students think about designing for more global systems.” 

Read the full article about Sara here

Here’s what a student had to say about the new Explore IoT Kit, when he got the chance to try out an advanced version:

“I would describe it as a very beginner-friendly way to get started with the Internet of Things, and a kit that you will be able to expand upon with your own ideas and components.”

“…the getting started section got me really excited to actually get started because it inspired all these thought streams of what I could potentially create with the kit.” Oliver Kempel – Danish High School Student 

The kit features 10 activities for students to develop a complete understanding of IoT:

  • Using the IoT Cloud and connected devices: Control physical objects, such as a displays or lights, remotely with the Arduino IoT Cloud
  • Collecting, processing, and storing data: Store data locally, wirelessly, and remotely for analysis and backup
  • Graphing and visualizing data and understanding its meaning: Use different tools and techniques to graph data and interpret the information collected
  • Serial communication, APIs, JSON, and web servers: Learn the essentials of how APIs (application programming interfaces) work, how to access remote web servers, and how to store the incoming data in JSON objects to create devices that can access all sorts of data from all over the world, and display it locally
  • Network security considerations: Understand how software developers protect devices and information from unauthorized access
  • Different sensors and how to use them: Investigate the environment using temperature, humidity, and light sensors, collect data about movement using an accelerometer, pressure, and motion sensors, take care of your plants by following the data from moisture and light sensors
  • Actuators and how to use them: Use lights, sound, display, and relays: electronic components used to activate high power devices, to visualize data, and control external devices

The Explore IoT Kit is available to buy now from our Education Partners locally or from the Arduino Store for only €99 / $114.

N.B. In addition to the Explore IoT Kit,  a second kit the “Oplà IoT Kit” will also be coming soon, targeting makers and professionals alike who are after an out-of-the-box IoT experience. The Oplà IoT Kit will enable users to instantly add connectivity to devices for the home and workplace – available to buy from early October onwards.



  • Newsletter

    Sign up for the PlanetArduino Newsletter, which delivers the most popular articles via e-mail to your inbox every week. Just fill in the information below and submit.

  • Like Us on Facebook