RoadTest: Arm Education: Internet of Things Course
Author: ralphjy
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?:
What were the biggest problems encountered?: Development tool versions used in the labs were obsolete and code was incompatible with hardware provided.
Detailed Review:
The Arm Education IoT course presents an overview of the Internet of Things and provides an description of its components - infrastructure, hardware, and software. It takes a detailed look at embedded development tools and hardware through hands-on labs that go through the creation of a weather station implementation that interfaces with a smartphone app. I think the design of the content is good, but the execution of both the lectures and labs is horrible. My understanding is that this course was recently upgraded to refresh the content, but it appears that effort was primarily aimed at the lecture material.
The course required the following hardware which was provided (except for the Android device)
I captured the details of my roadtest experience in a series of blogs that correspond roughly to the course modules:
My overall experience with this course in a single word is FRUSTRATED! It's a real shame because I did learn from this course and I did get exposed to new tools and hardware. The whole experience could have been so much better if this course had been properly updated. Struggling to fix all the issues with the old lab projects was a terrible waste of time. My recommendation to Arm Education is that they remove this course from their curriculum until the labs can be updated and vetted. Please make sure your examples actually work! And please provide the required MDK license for the duration of the course.
Top Comments
Well done for completing the course and in providing a balanced review throughout. This is a very nice summary to complete it all.
Hi Ralph,
Thanks for the succinct summary. Educational material, especially outside of a traditional classroom setting, needs to be error free and clear. Nothing kills interest like continuously having…
Well worded summary. The use of links to your progress blogs is a great idea.
A+ for your report card :-)