IoT 01 Curriculum for Beginners
Microsoft Azure Cloud is excited to present a comprehensive 12-week, 24-lesson curriculum focused on IoT fundamentals. Each lesson features pre- and post-lesson quizzes, detailed instructions, solutions, assignments, and more. Our project-based approach ensures that you learn effectively by building practical projects, which is a proven method for skill retention.
The curriculum explores the journey of food from farm to table, covering farming, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and consumer sectors—all key areas for IoT applications.
Pedagogy
Our curriculum is built on two key pedagogical principles: project-based learning and frequent quizzes. By the end of this series, students will have created a plant monitoring and watering system, a vehicle tracker, a smart factory setup for food tracking, and a voice-controlled cooking timer. They will also gain foundational knowledge of the Internet of Things, including device coding, cloud connectivity, telemetry analysis, and edge AI.
Aligning content with projects makes the learning process more engaging and enhances concept retention.
Low-stakes quizzes before each class set the stage for learning, while post-class quizzes reinforce retention. This flexible and enjoyable curriculum can be completed in full or in part, with projects increasing in complexity over the 12-week period.
Each project uses real-world hardware accessible to students and hobbyists, providing relevant background knowledge. Understanding the domain in which you solve problems is crucial for successful development. This background knowledge helps students contextualize their IoT solutions and appreciate the end user.
Hardware
We offer two IoT hardware options based on personal preference, programming language knowledge, learning goals, and availability. A 'virtual hardware' version is also available for those without access to physical hardware or who want to learn more before purchasing. Visit the hardware page for a 'shopping list' and links to buy complete kits from Seeed Studio.
Each lesson includes:
- Sketchnote
- Optional supplemental video
- Pre-lesson warmup quiz
- Written lesson
- Step-by-step guides for project-based lessons
- Knowledge checks
- A challenge
- Supplemental reading
- Assignment
- Post-lesson quiz
A note about quizzes: All quizzes are available in this app, featuring 48 quizzes with three questions each. They are linked within the lessons, but the quiz app can also be run locally; follow the instructions in the
quiz-appfolder. Localization is in progress.
Lessons
| Project Name | Concepts Taught | Learning Objectives | Linked Lesson | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Getting started | Introduction to IoT | Learn the basic principles of IoT and the fundamental building blocks of IoT solutions, such as sensors and cloud services, while setting up your first IoT device | Introduction to IoT |
| 02 | Getting started | A deeper dive into IoT | Explore the components of an IoT system, including microcontrollers and single-board computers | A deeper dive into IoT |
| 03 | Getting started | Interact with the physical world with sensors and actuators | Discover how sensors gather data from the physical world and how actuators provide feedback while building a nightlight | Interact with the physical world with sensors and actuators |
| 04 | Getting started | Connect your device to the Internet | Learn to connect an IoT device to the Internet to send and receive messages by linking your nightlight to an MQTT broker | Connect your device to the Internet |
| 05 | Farm | Predict plant growth | Use temperature data captured by an IoT device to predict plant growth | Predict plant growth |
| 06 | Farm | Detect soil moisture | Learn to detect soil moisture and calibrate a soil moisture sensor | Detect soil moisture |
| 07 | Farm | Automated plant watering | Automate and time watering using a relay and MQTT | Automated plant watering |
| 08 | Farm | Migrate your plant to the cloud | Explore cloud-hosted IoT services and learn to connect your plant to one instead of a public MQTT broker | Migrate your plant to the cloud |
| 09 | Farm | Migrate your application logic to the cloud | Learn to write application logic in the cloud that responds to IoT messages | Migrate your application logic to the cloud |
| 10 | Farm | Keep your plant secure | Understand IoT security and how to protect your plant with keys and certificates | Keep your plant secure |
| 11 | Transport | Location tracking | Learn about GPS location tracking for IoT devices | Location tracking |
| 12 | Transport | Store location data | Discover how to store IoT data for future visualization or analysis | Store location data |
| 13 | Transport | Visualize location data | Learn to visualize location data on a map and understand how maps represent the 3D world in 2D | Visualize location data |
| 14 | Transport | Geofences | Explore geofences and how they can alert when vehicles in the supply chain approach their destination | Geofences |
| 15 | Manufacturing | Train a fruit quality detector | Learn to train an image classifier in the cloud to detect fruit quality | Train a fruit quality detector |
| 16 | Manufacturing | Check fruit quality from an IoT device | Use your fruit quality detector from an IoT device | Check fruit quality from an IoT device |
| 17 | Manufacturing | Run your fruit detector on the edge | Learn to run your fruit detector on an IoT device at the edge | Run your fruit detector on the edge |
| 18 | Manufacturing | Trigger fruit quality detection from a sensor | Discover how to trigger fruit quality detection from a sensor | Trigger fruit quality detection from a sensor |
| 19 | Retail | Train a stock detector | Use object detection to train a stock detector to count inventory in a shop | Train a stock detector |
| 20 | Retail | Check stock from an IoT device | Learn to check stock from an IoT device using an object detection model | Check stock from an IoT device |
| 21 | Consumer | Recognize speech with an IoT device | Learn to recognize speech from an IoT device to build a smart timer | Recognize speech with an IoT device |
| 22 | Consumer | Understand language | Discover how to understand sentences spoken to an IoT device | Understand language |
| 23 | Consumer | Set a timer and provide spoken feedback | Learn to set a timer on an IoT device and provide spoken feedback on the timer's status | Set a timer and provide spoken feedback |
| 24 | Consumer | Support multiple languages | Learn to support multiple languages for both input and output on your smart timer | Support multiple languages |