Introduction
It’s a new year, and it’s time for another round of #JulyOT! This themed month of blog posts, live streams, videos, and learning materials focuses on all things related to development of IoT Solutions built using Azure IoT Services.
Throughout the month of July, the IoT Cloud Advocacy team @ Microsoft will be sharing content and events put together by IoT enthusiasts from around the world. This includes content from community members, Microsoft employees, and could even involve you!
For every weekday in July, we’ll focus on a featured content piece from our curated collection at the IoT Tech Community. The idea is to inspire those curious about IoT to pursue their own personal projects within the realm of Internet of Things.
Make sure to bookmark our #JulyOT post at the Microsoft IoT Tech Community and be sure to refresh the page throughout the month, as we will be adding new content each week that align to this year’s #JulyOT Content Themes!
#JulyOT Content Themes
Each week during the month of #JulyOT, we will focus on a specific area of IoT and we are pleased to say that we have a little bit of something for everyone. See below for a quick listing of our content themes for the month!
- July 1 – 2 : #JulyOT Content Kickoff
- July 5 – 9 : Artificial Intelligence at the Edge
- July 12 – 16 : Beginners, Students, Teachers and Makers
- July 19 – 23 : Microcontrollers and Embedded Hardware
- July 26 – 30 : Online learning and Certification
Whether you are interested in applied artificial intelligence, a total beginner, a student looking to start a class project, teacher looking for an IoT course curriculum, a hardware tinkerer / hacker, or professional developer looking to designate yourself as an official Azure IoT Developer, we have you covered! Check out the sections below for more details on what to expect during these themed weeks.
July 1 – 2 : #JulyOT Content Kickoff
We plan to begin #JulyOT by spreading the word far and wide ot let everyone know that we are looking to inspire interested individuals from all over the world to build innovative IoT solutions. Help us by sharing this very blog post to your favorite IoT Communities!
July 5 – 9 : Artificial Intelligence at the Edge
Artificial Intelligence at the Edge is one of the hottest trends in IoT, and we have an excellent line-up of community created content to excite all who have an interest in this area. We’ll begin with a creative solution from Goran Vuksic that leverages the Azure Percept Dev Kit and Lego Boost sensors to create an Azure Percept Mobile! Also, Peter Gallagher and Clifford Agius, both incredible Azure IoT MVPs from the larger IoT Developer Community and hosts of Azureish Live, will share some exciting content that will show you how to build your own solutions using the Azure Percept Dev Kit. This will be followed up by an article from Chintan Shah, product manager at NVIDIA, that will show you how to enhance pre-trained AI models using the Transfer Learning Toolkit on Azure Virtual Machines! To finish off the week, Benjamin Cabe will share his infamous Artificial Nose, a device that can make sense of smells using an off the shelf microcontroller paired with TinyML.
July 12 – 16 : Beginners, Students, Teachers, and Makers
We often hear questions from folks interested in getting started with IoT, whether it is students looking to add a new in-demand skill to their learning, faculty looking for curricula to teach their knowledge-hungry students, bootcamps wanting to upskill their members, or experienced developers looking to learn a new area. This is why we’ve built IoT for beginners, a free, open source, project-based, 24 lesson curriculum designed to teach you or your students IoT from the ground up, built in collaboration between Microsoft and students around the globe. We understand that not everyone has access to IoT hardware for learning, so we’ve provided multiple options for what you need to get started, from IoT Kits from Seeed Studios, to virtual IoT hardware that you can run on your computer, simulating a range of sensors and actuators.
We’ll be kicking off the week with an introduction on the IoT Show from Jim Bennett that talks about what we’ve built and why we’ve built it, along with a series of livestreams in collaboration with the Microsoft Reactor covering the first 4 lessons. We will then share more lessons, focusing on a different project each day. We start with learning how to use IoT in a smart farm to help feed our growing population. We then move on a journey from the farm to your table with lessons based on a smart logistics project, tracking your food as it leaves the farm. We jump to AI on the edge next as you learn how to build an AI powered fruit quality detector as part of a smart factory. Retail is next on the agenda as you see how to build stock counting once again using AI on the edge. To round off the week it’s time to cook something nice, using a timer you’ve built as part of a voice controlled smart assistant.
As you get involved trying out these lessons and learning IoT we want you to share your experiences! Please share the IoT apps you have built with the hashtag #JulyOT!
July 26 – 30 : Microcontrollers and Embedded Hardware
If you are not thinking about secure IoT then you should be especially considering recent ransomware attacks on American infrastructure. The focus of this week will be on building secure by design and default IoT solutions with Azure Sphere and Azure IoT.
This week will kickstart your Azure Sphere journey, and learn about best practices and useful tools that will make your life easier developing Azure Sphere applications.
Following this, be first to learn how we bought the Altair 8800 to Azure Sphere and cloud enabled the 40-year-old technology born when the internet was just a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eye. This project pushed the boundaries of Azure Sphere, the project is open source and you will learn how to run the Altair 8800 on the Azure Sphere and develop Basic, Assembler and C applications on the Azure Sphere.
We've also teamed up with Microchip to release new free courseware on Microchip University and the Enabling a Seamless IoT Experience with Microsoft Azure IoT and Microchip MCUs/MPUs on-demand webinar. Courses will cover the full device lifecycle, including provisioning at scale, connecting devices to the cloud, and working with top Microchip MCUs. (PIC, SAM E54, etc) Plus, we will cover how to work with IoT Plug and Play and using Azure IoT Central for device management.
And finally, the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the new RP2040 based Raspberry Pi Pico this year and there is now a Wi-Fi enabled developer board built on the RP2040 from Arduino. In this segment we will cover how to connect an RP2040 based microcontrollers to Azure IoT and Azure IoT Central with the new Azure SDK for Embedded C.
July 27 – 31 : Online Learning and Certification
During these 31 days, we also want to challenge our community to sharpen their knowledge of Azure IoT Services by offering an Azure IoT Developer Journey designed to guide learners in pursuit of an official designation as a certified Azure IoT Developer. We are accompanying this Learning journey with a “30 Days to Learn It - Cloud Skills Challenge”. This is a limited-time promotion that will challenge you to learn and apply knowledge of Azure IoT Services by completing a curated series of interactive learning modules from the Microsoft Learn Online Learning Platform. Once you have registered for the Cloud Skills Challenge, if you are able to complete the assigned modules within a 30-day time period, you may be eligible to receive a 50% off voucher to take the official AZ-220 IoT Developer Certification Exam.”
Otherwise, if you would like to complete the recommended learning outside the 30 Days to learn it here are the individuals learning paths:
- Introduction to Azure IoT
- Build the intelligent edge with Azure IoT Edge
- Securely connect IoT devices to the cloud
- Develop IoT solutions with Azure IoT Central
- Develop with Azure Digital Twins
Apart from the self-paced learning approach if you prefer an instructor-led approach to complete your certification training here is where you may find more information.
Also, during this week you will learn more about how to build end to end IoT solutions with our 6 part series. Learn how you can implement Microsoft Azure Defender for IoT to secure your entire IoT/OT environment, protect existing IoT/OT devices, and build security into new IoT innovations in our new learning path.
If you would like to take your learning journey to the next level, applying and relating services and concepts to a real-world scenario, we have a bunch of demo resources, virtual cloud workshops and hands-on labs to help you tackle some of these common scenarios end-to-end whether you are a developer, architect or decision maker trying to apply some of these key concepts to your industry or specific business scenario:
- Leveraging Azure Digital Twins in a supply chain (MCW version, GitHub version)
- Retail Demo - Instore Analytics
- Workplace Health and Safety Demo
- Chocolate Manufacturing Factory Condition Monitoring using Azure Digital Twins (MS Learn version, GitHub version)
Conclusion:
We hope to inspire all who partake in #JulyOT with the motivation to learn and apply your knowledge to create something new! If you have an idea, let us know about it on social media by using the hashtag #JulyOT to share your ideas and creations! We plan to feature your awesome submissions in a follow-up post, so start thinking about that project you always wanted to and keep us posted along the way, we can’t wait to see what you create!
Posted at https://sl.advdat.com/35Ncvr6