Open-access, remotely-accessible STEM lesson plans and labs for K–12 education, built on the COSMOS testbed. All lesson plans are aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
The full toolkit — lesson plans, student worksheets and classroom presentations — is published as a browsable site:
→ Browse the COSMOS Education Toolkit lesson library
| Subject | Lessons | Grades |
|---|---|---|
| Science | 36 | 6–12 |
| Math | 37 | 6–12 |
| Computer Science | 32 | 9–12 |
| Art | 1 | 7–8 |
Each lesson ships an NGSS-aligned lesson plan, a student worksheet, and — for most — a classroom presentation.
The two lessons below are written up as full testbed tutorials, with the complete node and software setup, for running the SDR-based labs live on COSMOS.
The rapid evolution of technology requires major transformation in the educational system. All students should have quality access to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pre-college coursework in order to bridge the digital and equity divide.
To address this challenge, we developed a teacher professional development (PD) program and a toolkit consisting of a hardware and software system to engage STEM teachers in learning about wireless technology through hands-on activities and collaborative research. Through the PD program and the development of the COSMOS Education Toolkit, the COSMOS research testbed is transformed into an innovative learning platform for K–12 urban students, providing significant educational benefits for the local community.
The hardware setup of the COSMOS Education Toolkit is inspired by the testbed's nodes. It consists of off-the-shelf components which, combined with dedicated software, let teachers execute a wide range of real-world experiments. The software system is built around a web-based graphical interface with an easy-to-use philosophy for executing and managing lab activities. Students use that interface to navigate and select a lesson, run the lab activity, and collect measurements — the same way they would work with the COSMOS testbed itself.
For more about the COSMOS Education Toolkit and the teacher professional development program:
P. Skrimponis, N. Makris, S. Borges Rajguru, K. Cheng, J. Ostromertzky, E. Ford, Z. Kostic, G. Zussman, and T. Korakis, “COSMOS Educational Toolkit: Using Experimental Wireless Networking to Enhance Middle/High School STEM Education,” ACM SIGCOMM Computer and Communication Review, vol. 50, no. 4, Oct. 2020. Download
P. Skrimponis, N. Makris, K. Cheng, J. Ostromertzky, Z. Kostic, G. Zussman, T. Korakis, and S. Borges Rajguru, “A Teacher Professional Development Program Using Wireless Communications and NGSS to Enhance STEM Teaching and Learning,” Proc. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, Jul. 2020. ASEE · Download · Presentation · Video
D. Raychaudhuri, I. Seskar, G. Zussman, T. Korakis, D. Kilper, T. Chen, J. Kolodziejski, M. Sherman, Z. Kostic, X. Gu, H. Krishnaswamy, S. Maheshwari, P. Skrimponis, and C. Gutterman, “Challenge: COSMOS: A city-scale programmable testbed for experimentation with advanced wireless,” Proc. ACM MOBICOM'20, 2020. ACM · Download · Presentation · Long video · Short video
If you use these experiments in your class, please cite the papers above.
The SDR experiments have been evaluated on sandbox 1 using the outdoor sub-6 GHz deployment. These tutorials use a large node sdr2-s1-lg1 and a medium node sdr2-md1 from the Main Rooftop SDR deployment. Both are equipped with a USRP Krypton 2974 over PCIe.
ssh <username>@console.sb1.cosmos-lab.org
omf tell -a offh -t system:topo:allres
education-toolkit.ndz onto both nodes:omf load -i education-toolkit.ndz -t sdr2-s1-lg1,sdr2-md1
omf tell -a on -t sdr2-s1-lg1,sdr2-md1
omf stat -t system:topo:allres
The experiments run behind a web interface (HTML/CSS front end, Python back end) that controls and orchestrates the labs. Communication between your laptop and the testbed nodes uses SSH port forwarding plus X11 forwarding.
Each node uses a different set of local ports. Node #1 and node #2 are not interchangeable — connecting to the wrong port is the most common setup mistake.
sdr2-s1-lg1 — node #1
| Description | Remote port | Local port |
|---|---|---|
| Front-end web interface | 80 | 8081 |
| Back-end web server | 8090 | 8091 |
| Audio TCP server | 8100 | 8101 |
sdr2-md1 — node #2
| Description | Remote port | Local port |
|---|---|---|
| Front-end web interface | 80 | 8082 |
| Back-end web server | 8090 | 8092 |
| Audio TCP server | 8100 | 8102 |
Port 80 serves the web interface used to start every lesson and lab. Port 8090 talks to the back-end server. Both are required for all lessons. Some labs use a speaker so students can hear the incoming audio signal from the SDRs; for those, a TCP socket on port 8100 of the remote node streams audio to your machine, and a small Python client on the host connects to it.
All GNU Radio experiments need a GUI, so connect with -X or -Y to forward X11 from the node.
sdr2-s1-lg1:ssh -Y <username>@console.sb1.cosmos-lab.org -L 8081:sdr2-s1-lg1:80 -L 8091:sdr2-s1-lg1:8090 -L 8101:sdr2-s1-lg1:8100
ssh -Y root@sdr2-s1-lg1
sdr2-md1:ssh -Y <username>@console.sb1.cosmos-lab.org -L 8082:sdr2-md1:80 -L 8092:sdr2-md1:8090 -L 8102:sdr2-md1:8100
ssh -Y root@sdr2-md1
Keep both terminal sessions open while running the experiments. Then open the web interfaces:
sdr2-s1-lg1 → http://localhost:8081sdr2-md1 → http://localhost:8082Detailed write-ups for the two SDR labs:
| Tutorial | About |
|---|---|
| AM/FM Modulation — Grade 8 | Observe amplitude-modulated (AM) and frequency-modulated (FM) signals in the time and frequency domain using the COSMOS Education Toolkit. |
| Signal Transmission — Visualizing AM and FM Waves — Grade 8 | Teach the properties of waves by visualizing AM and FM signals transmitted over the air between two SDR nodes. |
Authors: Panagiotis Skrimponis, New York University (ps3857[at]nyu.edu); Nikos Makris, New York University.
Please email Panagiotis with questions, or if you are interested in using the COSMOS Education Toolkit in your class.
Part of the COSMOS Tutorials collection.