André Roussel is an experienced higher education teacher. He currently teaches the Internet of Things course at the Collège Communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in Canada, and has deep experience in process improvement, systems analysis, electrical wiring, databases, and programming. André has a Master’s degree in Physics and holds a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt certification. We recently caught up with André to get his thoughts on the Internet of Things, what developments he’s involved with, and what he thinks we can expect from the IoT in the future.

Arduino Education: Hi André, it’s great to meet you! Let’s get right into it and start with what exactly inspires you?

André Roussel: Hi! It’s got to be discovering new things, always finding something new or learning something new. But when it comes to the classroom, nothing inspires me more as a teacher than that moment where my students learn something and their eyes light up.

AE: We can imagine that! Are there any books or resources that have been particularly influential to you?

AR: Yes, an original copy of a handwritten 1983 book about electronics - it’s the first book that got me started in the world of programming.

AE: Amazing. So what’s one thing you wish you’d have known at the beginning of your career?

AR: Wow, just one thing? It would have to be knowing all of the techniques that allow you to complete tasks faster, like the Pomodoro Technique.

AE: I think a lot of people will relate to that! What’s a common myth about your profession that you’d like to set straight?

AR: So people think that programming is all about math and logic. That it's all about hard science, and soldering stuff. But a lot of it is about creativity. It's about letting your imagination go. We're seeing things right now, all over the world, where artists have taken electronics and microcontrollers, and are doing absolutely amazing things. For example, there's a light dance show, which is absolutely amazing.

AE: Getting into IoT now, how did you originally start with programming?

AR: It all came about because a friend and I did a science fair at school. We started thinking, can we get a robot to move? Can we put a computer on it? So we started doing these night classes and learned coding. Then we got a Timex Sinclair, a little flat keyboard computer, and we had a robot that kept running away from us for our 11th grade science fair. We had so much fun, and I’ve been having fun ever since! I've never studied formally; I don't have a bachelor's degree in science or computer science, but I've been coding since then off and on.

AE: And right after that you started teaching with development at community college. What type of resources did you use? And how do you think that teaching has evolved since then?

AR: This was during the mid to late nineties, during the personal computer revolution. We had labs full of desktops with those CRT screens...and we were lucky if we had a color monitor! But it at that time was interesting, because you were really, really close to the machine. For example, if you wanted a better graphic card, Amazon wasn't there, you'd have to walk to your local radio shack or local computer store, grab a video card, open up your machine and play with the jumper!

That gave a lot of people quite a good understanding of how the machine works and how data is stored, but now everybody's using it, everybody's having fun. And everybody is being productive with those machines. We're also doing different things with them, making greater pieces of software and AI is taking over. I believe that it's hugely evolved, but we're still finding bits and pieces of what we were doing in the late nineties.

AE: And what do you think are the difficulties teachers and students face while teaching and learning coding?

AR: The first time I learned was when I took a Fortran course at university. This was where I came across things like loops and variables and the mechanics of how computer language works. The difficulty then, which I think is still the same now, is that it's not translated into a problem I want to solve, it’s more like part of a manufacturing chain or something bigger. So if you can, in a sense, help a student solve an existing problem, maybe by creating the problem in the first place, you can give the student a more meaningful scenario.

For example, when learning is attached to a real-life situation, it gets easier. Students understand why they need to do something. Because honestly, programming for the sake of programming can be boring. When it's attached to something real and you're actually doing something that will influence things around you, it gets really interesting.

AE: So now how did you start using Arduino?

AR: In northern New Brunswick where I live, there are a lot of hunters, and many of them have these big meat coolers like butchers. I happened to be working on one and I knew there must be a way to regulate and check the temperature without having to physically go to the freezer. That's when I came across Arduino and Raspberry Pis, and I thought, “What can I do with those? Can I use them?” So one of my first projects was just basically monitoring temperature and humidity, because of these local hunters.

That's how I got started using Arduinos and having fun with them! I just wanted to solve a problem.

INSPIRED? HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO GET STARTED WITH ARDUINO EDUCATION

The Arduino Student Kit can be used for both home learning and classroom teaching. It will help you get started quickly and easily with robotics, electronics, and coding.

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