Discoveries

tl;dr; Students will be asked to share a series of discoveries (code samples, articles, libraries, etc) that will benefit the group. Students will prepare at least 5 discoveries over the course of the semester.

Documenting Discoveries

Throughout the course, you are encouraged to go beyond the course materials and uncover new ideas and techniques related to the internet of things. To incentivize this self-directed exploration, it is a graded component of this course.

To receive this grade you are to regularly research and report technical solutions, approaches and examples that are relevant to the course or a project that’s been assigned.

The example should be one of the following (unless otherwise instructed):

• an example project, speculative proposal or commerical product that is exciting, innovative or inspirational;
• a library or extension that could be used in a project for the course;
• a technical tutorial that provides guidance on implementing some aspect of IoT/physical computing solutions;
• articles or best practice that provides guidance on designing / prototyping IoT outcomes;
• a research paper or underlying technology that relates to the course topics;
• code samples that illustrate a solution, workflow or technical strategy.

Simply put, find and report resources that will help you make better projects as part of this course.

Learning Objectives

As part of the exercise, students will:

• build familiarity with projects and approaches that are relevant to the course;
• identify and critically review technical solutions that relate to the course;
• help co-create a set of exemplars to draw on as part of their own creative projects;
• increase their ability to describe and implement technical solutions for lightweight IoT projects.

Deliverables:

Add your documented example to the relevant discoveries channel on Discord (see below). The discovery should include a link to the resource, it’s creators, and a short narrative (100-200 words explaining why someone else should pay attention to it)

Submitting your work:

You’ll submit your precedents on Discord. Each discovery should be submitted separately.

To submit your work:

• Open Slack and navigate to the relevant discoveries channel. There is one channel dedicated to each discovery exercise.
• In the post, the title should match the name of the project
• Add some text about your discovery. This should start with: a) link(s) to the project website b) a list of original creators/artists, c) relevant images or embed videos (see below).
• When you have written your post, click Enter to post it

It might be helpful to know that Discord uses Markdown for formatting. This lets you create styled text with a light markup.

For example,

• to add a header on Discord, add a number sign (#) and a space at the start of your line.
• to make something bold wrap it in two asterixes (**Bold Text**) or underscores (__Bold Text__)
• to make something italics you can wrap it in an asterix (*Italic Text*) or underscore (_Italic Text_)

# Heading 1
## Subheading

Some text that is **bold** and _italic_. 

Template and documentation

In each post, embed a video and/or images of the project (simply paste a link to the video/image source or use the file upload feature), and write a short critical reflection on the project (about 100-200 words) in which you cover the following:

1. Overview: Briefly describe the project (a couple of sentences) and who made it.
2. Discovery: Describe why did you select it, what did you learn, why is it interesting to you?
3. Relevance: Describe why you believe someone should pay attention to it
4. Application: Finally, give some examples of how you might use it in your project or what it might be used to do.

Here is a template for your Discord post

# Project Title
## Creator Name, Another Creator (2021-2024)

_Overview:_ 
Briefly describe the project (a couple of sentences) and who made it.

_Reflection:_ 
Describe why did you select it, what did you learn, why is it interesting to you? 
Describe why you believe _someone should pay attention to it_
Finally, give some examples of how you might use it in your project or what it might be used to do.

[Add links and images here]

Grading

You receive up to 2% for each discovery, for a maximum of 10% credit. You are expected to share 6 discoveries over the course of the semester. Discoveries will be graded as pass/fail:

• 0 - Unsatisfactory - Incomplete or failing work. The example does not fit within the constraints of the project, is not relevant to the course or does not demonstrate any comprehension, reflection or analysis on it.

• 1 - Satisfactory or better - Meets or exceeds the minimum requirements for the exercise; Highlights a good example within the scope of the exercise AND shows adequate research and reflection.

This will be applied to EACH discovery.

To guarantee you pass the assignment, make sure you have:

• Used the correct format and channel for your post on Slack ^*
• Added each discovery as a separate post on Slack ^*
• Appropriately titled and given credit to the creators of the project/work ^*
• Have included at least one link to the resource ^*
• Written between 100-150 words on the discovery and it’s relevance (not copy-paste descriptions!) ^*
• Made an effort to reflect on the discovery and it’s relevance/utility
• Written clearly, effectively and critically

^* Incidates that if you do not meet these criteria you will immediately fail the assignment.

More information can be found in the Grading, Feedback and Policies section

Constraints

• No two students may submit the same work. Claim early.
• Avoid examples already in the Resources section of the course site or that are covered in class.

Starting points

To help guide your explorations, a list of potential places will be provided in the Product Hunt discovery brief and in the Resources section of this site.

Note: This is by no means an exhaustive list. You should explore beyond these!

Using AI in Discovery Assignments

This assignment asks you to identify, review and share your insights on key examples relating to the Internet of Things. Discovery assignments must represent your own intellectual work and so you are expected to prepare these works directly. You might, however, use AI for proof-reading your assignment. If you use AI in this assignment, even for proofreading, you must declare it.