A paper co-authored by Sergi Trilles, David Tortosa and Carlos Granell has been nominated as the best paper for the upcoming JENUI 2020 conference. The project will be presented today through a synchronous virtual session. Previously, a video presentation [in Spanish] of the work has been published on Youtube.

JENUI is the national forum that brings together professors and researchers to share their experiences, reflections, and projects on teaching computer science and informatics topics at the university level. Whereas teaching experiences at university level are the primary focus of the conference, other types of works like experiences and projects aimed at promoting and fostering informatics studies among pre-university students were also welcome. Our paper precisely fitted into the latter group.

Its title is “La evolución del proyecto Sucre4Kids mediante el paradigma del Internet de las Cosas” and presents the evolution of the Sucre project (http://www.sucre.uji.es/) using the Internet of Things paradigm. This new version designs and develops two distinct tools: SucreCore and SucreCode. The first one is based on a new microcontroller called Particle and supports wireless connectivity with the ability to create mesh networks. SucreCode is a block-based visual programming tool and adds the functionality to update the SucreCore using Over-The-Air updates.

The abstract of the paper appears below.

This paper presents the technological evolution of the Sucre4Kids project, which aims at promoting scientific vocations, developing computational thinking and programming in pre-university students. After four years of proven classroom experience, the entire project ecosystem has been redesigned from the perspective of the Internet of Things. On the technological level, two distinct tools are proposed SucreCore and SucreCode. The first introduces a new, more compact design, encapsulating a more advanced microcontroller, and supports wireless connectivity with the ability to create mesh networks. The block-based visual programming tool, SucreCode, has a revamped interface and allows wireless updates over the SucreCore. At the pedagogical level, new technological features undertake new dynamics and types of collaborative projects between groups of students. This greater degree of interactivity and communication, which was a limitation in the previous version of Sucre4Kids, augurs a growing interest of students, as we have observed in the first classroom interventions.