Our Sixth form Computer Science students had the privilege to participate in one of the technological workshops organized by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) as part of the ‘Science and innovation week of the Canary Islands 2022’ event.

Félix Tobajas, a lecturer from the Telecommunications faculty of the ULPGC, and Paloma Monzón and Alicia Sánchez from Tinkers, came to our school to run a workshop about the Internet of Things (IoT).

Our students had the opportunity to understand the importance that this technology is playing in our modern world where everyday objects are rapidly becoming Internet connected and controlled.

As an example, he showed them the new ‘LPA park’ app function that, using an IoT device, allows users to find out the availability of blue zone car parks in the city in real time.

In the second part of the workshop, our students were given the opportunity to develop two simple IoT devices. The first one was a sensor programmed to send a message to their phones when a car was detected parking. This was similar to the one used by the LPA park app and the second IoT device was a GPS tracker.

The students were fascinated by what they had learned about the use of microcontrollers and sensors, and how easy it was for them to start their own IoT projects at home.

We hope that, thanks to this workshop, we’ve inspired some of our students to become future engineers in a world where the IoT will play a huge role in our day-to-day lives.