ARDUINO DAY 2018: SENSING AND CONTROLLING REAL WORLD USING ARDUINO – PUBLISHED IN DECEMBER 2018 ISSUE OF THE IEEE COMSOC GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS NEWSLETTER (GCN)

The Department of Telecommunication (TL) Engineering, Mehran UET, Jamshoro, organized this two-day workshop to celebrate Arduino Day 2018 with the partnership of the IoT Research Labortory (TL, Dept.) and IEEE ComSoc Karachi. The title of the workshop was “Sensing and Controlling Real World using Arduino.” The celebration and workshop were conducted on 10–11 May, 2018. It was initiated by Dr. Faisal Karim Shaikh (Chairman, TL Dept.), Engr. Nafeesa Bohra (Assistant Professor). and Engr. Anum Talpur (Lecturer), to make the students of Telecommunication, Electrical, Electronics and Computer System department aware of the Arduino platform and its use in the field of IoT. The welcome speech was delivered by Dr. Faisal Karim Shaikh, who spoke about Arduino Day and how Arduino is playing a key role in making the world smart. He spoke about the current role of Arduino and its growing future. This initiated the Arduino Day celebration. The first day included two sessions. The Day-1 workshop was conducted by Dr. Yasir Arfat Malkani, Ph.D. from the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. During this first session, he introduced the concept, underlying technologies, and applications of IoT, an overview of Wireless Sensor Networks, and current market trends of IoT. After a break, he conducted the second session of the workshop in which Arduino and its specifications were introduced. He conducted a hands onpractice session on basic applications such as a blinking LED, LDR sensing and ultrasonic sensor integration with Arduino. On the second day of the workshop, the session was conducted by Engr. Safiullah Shah (Researcher at IoT Lab, TL dept.) and Engr. Gulam Fiza (Researcher at IoT Lab, TL dept.). They presented a lecture on Arduino data collection mechanisms. The methods of data collection were introduced to students, including data collection through an SD card and through a global server/cloud (ThingSpeak). This also included a hands-on demo of WiFi module integration with Arduino. Finally, Engr. Nafeesa Bohra offered a word of thanks to the participants and trainers.