Modular electronics for broadening non-expert participation in STEM innovation: An IoT perspective

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiatives like makerspaces, open-source projects, engineering education etc., influence each other in a larger STEM ecosystem. This ecosystem extends beyond the traditional academic classroom into independent non-expert spaces and large corporate environments, and is critical to the innovative design of novel, efficient, and user-specific Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Although development boards have been commonly used in STEM programs and by engineers for initial design prototyping, these boards are not an ideal solution for non-expert users. Existing development boards lack the flexibility required to enable the rapid development and easy personalization of emerging IoT devices. In this paper, we survey modular electronic technologies used for education and suggest that modular electronics are the sustainable solution for a lightweight, versatile, and easily personalized generation of electronic devices. Modular electronics are application specific circuit pieces that can be combined in different configurations to create many different common devices like mobile phones or tablets. Modular electronics address obvious gaps in the STEM ecosystem, and consequently, the IoT space by allowing rapid prototyping and user-controlled reconfigurability.