Air quality is a very important health factor. However, there are situations where humans are exposed to poisonous air that has a high concentration of Volatile Organic compounds (VOC), especially indoor environments such as car cabins and offices. It is important for a better health to breathe clean air that has low concentrations of VOC. This paper presents a design for a system that aims to notify the residents of VOC's concentration level in both indoor and outdoor environments. The system is Arduino-based, it will monitor and detect total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and then inform the user via wireless communication system of its levels to take actions.

Due to global warming, governments around the world are focusing on renewable energy as the main source of energy. Gulf countries in particular, are focusing on solar energy due to its abundance and the gulf geolocation that allows the installation of ambitious solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems and replace conventional power plants. In order to maximize energy extraction from the sun, solar power operators need to constantly monitor key solar PV parameters such as panel temperature, solar irradiation, voltage and current in order to detect abnormalities in the PV system operation and take the necessary actions to keep the PV system performance at its maximum. However, monitoring such parameters on-site is exhausting and expensive. Moreover, remote monitoring for solar PV systems is a more attractive solution once the data collection, processing and transmission become faster and less expensive. This paper describes the design of a low-cost remote monitoring system intended for off-grid solar PV systems. The designed remote monitoring system uses a combination of an Arduino Uno Wi-Fi demilitarized zone (DMZ) communication system with router-configured network sensors calibrated to fulfill the IEC-61,724 standards and it provides meteorological and electrical measurements with an error of 2% or less. There are four primary features of the proposed monitoring system. First, it combines the Arduino Uno Wi-Fi with a DMZ configuration in the router. Second, it complies with the minimum current, voltage, power, and PV-module temperature values set by the IEC-61,724 in such a way that the average error does not exceed the 4% threshold. Third, it provides an accuracy level of 98% for the meteorological and electrical parameters. This level of accuracy exceeds that of commercial data logging equipment. Finally, its total cost is less than $100, which is less than that of available commercial solar PV monitoring systems. Additional features include the ability to select the number of processed measurements per hour and innovative processing, display, and access schemes. These features enable the accessibility of the data from mobile phones and computers within the campus for teaching and experimentation purposes.

In the near future, computers will be embedded everywhere and the Ubiquitous computing will be widely used. Ubiquitous computing requires multidisciplinary knowledge. To design such systems, a specific heterogeneous prototyping platform is required. Such platform has to be sufficiently versatile and in the same time easy to program even for beginners. Most ubiquitous systems are microcontrollers-based and are already too hard to program, limiting therefore their flexibility. In this paper we present a new concept of an easy to use wireless prototyping platform for Ubiquitous Computing suitable for people with limited computer skills. The prototype realized in this paper consists of a PIC that interfaces a Bluetooth USB dongle to communicate with the computer and send the program file to the targeted PIC to program it in place and from a distance.

The technological world has witnessed many revolutions since the beginning of the 21st century, such as mobile development, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence and also the Internet of Things. The internet of things revolution is driven by a broader access to internet and versatility of programmable hardware devices that can communicate between each other. In order to make internet of things devices, a technical background is required in many fields, especially electronics and Computer Science. Therefore, many efforts are put in place to develop educational kits that simplify the basics of these two fields so that everyone can make his internet of things prototype without technical knowledge. The authors present their own initiative: IOIOAI that simplifies the programming process for the input output input output electrical board. The service has been tested successfully on children and young students. In this paper, the authors present a wider adoption for their initiative. The IOIOAI service is implemented in introductory course to embedded systems for electrical and computer science students during the 2016–2017 academic year in the National Engineering School of Sfax, Tunisia. The efficiency of the solution is analyzed based on the students’ marks and feedback.

To validate the concept of an electronic system before thinking of commercial uses, a prototype needs to be developed first. However, technical knowledge in electronics and computer science (CS) is required. Due to the importance of these fields in the world of today, where almost everything is regulated by technology, several initiatives emerged to provide the general public with these knowledge. In this context, there is a focus on the education field where several efforts have been made to lower the entry level to electronics and CS fields, enabling even kids to learn the basic concepts at an early age and have the possibility to concretise their ideas and develop their own prototype. The study presents a solution to facilitate the task of programming electronic gadgets using graphical programming. The authors consider as case study an electronic system built around the IOIO board. The graphical programming interface was created using App Inventor, a web platform for creating android apps. Using the proposed system, several basic and complex gadgets were easily created by young school children with minimal skills in hardware assembly and software programming.