Group 7 — Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Buildings

This week we found our topic (IoT and Smart Buildings) and met our coach (Justin).

What is IoT?

Put simply, IoT is the thousands of devices and sensors that will become connected to the internet in the near future.” (Mason 2016). IoT will help our pavilion by gathering data and information about the environment, such as weather or the movements of people using the pavilion. It will also enable the pavilion to interact with people and allow people to interact with the pavilion.

These actions could be as obvious as a person pushing a button, or as subtle as using proximity sensors to track the movement of a person.

What is a Smart Building?

Smart Buildings are a“structure that uses automated processes to automatically control the building’s operations including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, security and other systems. A smart building uses sensors, actuators and microchips, in order to collect data and manage it according to a business’ functions and services. This infrastructure helps owners, operators and facility managers improve asset reliability and performance, which reduces energy use, optimizes how space is used and minimizes the environmental impact of buildings.” (Tracy 2016).

What does this mean for CODE3100?

Our pavilion can benefit from IoT technology and be a more desirable and user friendly place to be if it is a smart building. Our research and design solutions will be focused on achieving this.

Ideas from discussions with our coach.

After chatting with Justin, he gave us a list of things to research and consider:

• MQTT — MQTT is a machine-to-machine (M2M)/”Internet of Things” connectivity protocol. It was designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. It is useful for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium. http://mqtt.org/
• Node Red Scripting — is a tool for wiring together IoT technology, such as hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. It is browser based visual scripting, similar to grasshopper, so it is potentially easier for grasshopper users to get to know. https://nodered.org/
• Arduino — an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs — light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message — and turn it into an output — activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online. It can be coded, so it is highly customisable. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Introduction