Ada College Launches IoT Hackathon, Integrates ThingWorx into Curriculum

Tanya Weaver

Digital technology is increasingly embedded in everyday life, from the devices we use to the services we rely on. As a result, organizations need a workforce equipped with the technical skills to sustain and grow this digital economy.

Despite a surge in digital tech jobs—reaching 1.64 million this year—Tech City UK reports that up to 100 000 positions remain unfilled. To address this skills gap, Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, is focused on training the next generation of tech talent.

Located in London, the state‑funded college welcomed its first cohort of 58 students aged 16‑19 last year. Now entering its second academic year, Ada aims to enroll 2,000 students by 2021, with a strong emphasis on attracting women and students from low‑income households.

Ada is backed by a range of founding partners, including Deloitte. The Deloitte team contributes to curriculum design, mentors students, and supports recruitment events. In June 2017, Deloitte and Ada launched an Internet of Things (IoT) challenge to help sixth‑form students explore IoT possibilities and sharpen project‑management skills.

“Smart products embedded with sensors and software—think smart meters—are becoming ubiquitous. The line between what’s digital and what’s not is blurring, so we wanted students to engage with this theme on a practical level,” says Jamie Gore, technology analyst and Ada relationship lead.

The three‑day challenge, titled “Ada College as a Smart Campus,” tasked student teams with creating a product that connects students, teachers, and the college using sensor‑generated data and IoT technologies.

The Deloitte team, featuring IoT experts, delivered the brief in person and remained on site for the duration of the event to answer questions. They also supplied a comprehensive toolkit—hardware and software—to help students develop their IoT applications.

“We wanted to push them beyond a closed project and let their creativity and entrepreneurship shine,” Gore explains.

Hardware provided included a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, an Amazon Echo Dot (a miniaturised Alexa voice‑recognition device), and RFID stickers and readers.

Software access was granted to ThingWorx, a PTC development platform for building IoT dashboards that monitor data from connected products. In this project, students used ThingWorx to read RFID data.

“We selected ThingWorx because it’s user‑friendly and widely used in enterprise settings. We wanted students to work with the same tools that large tech companies use,” says Thomas Watling from Deloitte’s IoT innovation group.

Facing a new technology and a short timeline, many students found ThingWorx challenging at first. “ThingWorx was the hardest for them to grasp, but PTC’s support—including a developer who flew in—made a huge difference,” notes Tina Götschi, Ada’s head of Computer Science.

Students also accessed PTC’s newly launched online IoT training platform, IoT University. The free, interactive tutorials—led by industry experts—helped students and others quickly learn IoT and ThingWorx fundamentals.

The competition judged teams on four equally weighted categories: problem identification, project management, technical work, and pitch quality. The panel comprised representatives from Ada College, Deloitte, and PTC.

“The best ideas must be clearly communicated—especially the problem they solve, more so than the technical solution itself,” comments Francois Disch, Deloitte Systems Integration and a judge.

The winning team developed a solution to help teachers locate a specific student without physically searching. By using a unique student card with an RFID sticker, a student taps an RFID reader outside a classroom to register their presence.

“The winning team started small with a focused solution that could be built upon. Their technical execution, coupled with a strong pitch and thoughtful connectivity, earned them the top prize,” says Watling.

Although the team did not use ThingWorx during the three days, they indicated that with more time they would incorporate it. “Using ThingWorx would let us analyze RFID data—such as attendance timing—directly, eliminating manual spreadsheets for staff,” explains team leader Ross Nkama.

Another group created a temperature and humidity monitoring solution that leveraged ThingWorx. Team member Jakub Olender spent four hours on IoT University tutorials and then applied what he learned to visualize sensor data and send it to an air‑conditioning controller. The product, called “homeostasis,” showcases the power of ThingWorx to turn raw data into actionable insights.

While the challenge concluded, the partnership with PTC is just beginning. Götschi is eager for students to integrate ThingWorx into Ada’s curriculum.

The plan is to embed ThingWorx into two units: first, the ‘Impact of Computing’ unit within the BTEC Computer Science Diploma’s New and Emerging Technologies section, where students develop new computing solutions and assess their broader impacts; second, an electronics unit that focuses on sensors, with ThingWorx serving as the ideal software platform.

“Teaching in a rapidly evolving field is daunting. ThingWorx’s hands‑on support and the free IoT University resources mean students—and teachers—can keep pace with industry developments,” says Götschi.

Beyond education, the partnership opens additional opportunities. PTC is a Tier One partner at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). Within AMRC’s Factory 2050 campus, students could visit to see advanced manufacturing techniques in action.

“Through partnerships like this, we can broaden our students’ horizons, exposing them to a wider range of digital careers that many colleges simply don’t offer,” concludes Götschi.

For more information, visit www.iotu.com

The author of this blog is freelance writer, Tanya Weaver.