ABSTRACT
Universities must develop disciplinary skills during the COVID-19 era due to virtual classes, even in laboratory practices. In this experiment, disciplinary skills during COVID-19 era are developed through Project-Based Learning (PjBL), which is a classroom approach to give students knowledge and skills, through projects focused on real world challenges and problems. The purpose of this study was to design PjBL using Internet of Things (IoT) to have quantitative evaluation, learning experience perception, course contents assimilation, perception of improvement in soft skills and critical thinking. The project consisted in the measurement and analysis of vehicle variables for an engine embedded in IoT with idle speed conditions. The vehicle variables to be measured and analyzed are: carbon oxide and dioxide gas emissions, gas emission temperature, engine bay temperature and humidity, engine RPM, oil temperature, engine inertial forces, engine block temperature, and accelerator pedal position. The results prove that PjBLs with IoT in a hybrid context improve the students' learning experiences in a similar way to the face-to-face context. The score grade before and during COVID-19 exhibited 1.59% of increment;the learning experience perception showed that the students preferred the hybrid (42.86%) model (remote and real) in similar percentage in comparison with the face-to-face (53.06%), the virtual model (remote) was not fully accepted (4.08%). The 81.6% of the students preferred to implement projects based on IoT for future courses or prototypes. © 2021 ACM.