Didactic Prototype for Teaching the MQTT Protocol Based on Free Hardware Boards and Node-RED

Due to the constant evolution of the technologies related to the Internet of Things and the great expansion of the protocols and devices that possibilitate their use, there is a need to enforce and to approach the study of its concepts and applications to the students of electronic engineering and technical university careers. In this work, a weather station is designed and built based on low-cost technologies, whose data can be visible through an online platform designed for this purpose. The weather station is oriented to be used in laboratory practices and for teaching of subjects related to IoT, sensing platforms, communication platforms, etc. The general objective of the low-cost weather station platform is to provide a didactic, portable and simple design for replication in classroom in order to provide a whole system from the beginning to the students. Thanks to the use of this low cost platform it was possible to perform better approach to this technology obtaining great improvements in the learning process of the students. © 2003-2012 IEEE.