DIY Smart Home: The Development of an Exemplary Internet of Things Infrastructure for Computer Science Education

The generic term smart home describes among other things the increase of quality of life, security and reduction of energy consumption in our homes and workplaces through automated processes. These processes enable educators to work up realistic and tangible aspects of computing science using everyday examples. Programming, networks, communication protocols, web design and development, electrical engineering, data science, CAD and even project management can be combined with smart home in terms of content. For this reason, we have used open source tools to develop a cost-effective infrastructure that combines the above-mentioned aspects in a single kit. This kit is based on various in-house developed sensors and actuators based on the ESP8266, a Raspberry Pi as the central unit and Node-RED as the framework for linking the hardware. This hardware can be connected without writing code or previous knowledge, enables a quick experience of success while offering much potential for internal differentiation in teaching.