Innovative Pedagogies for Industry 4.0: Teaching RFID with Serious Games in a Project-Based Learning Environment

This work was conducted within the framework of French university reforms undertaken since 2022. Regardless of learning level and target audience, project-based learning has proved its effectiveness as a teaching strategy for many years. The novelty of the present contribution lies in the gamification of this learning method. A popular game, Trivial Pursuit, was adapted to enable students to acquire knowledge in a playful manner while preparing for upcoming technical challenges. Various technical subjects were chosen to create new cards for the game. A total of 180 questions and their answers were created. The colored tokens were then used to trace manufactured products. This teaching experiment was conducted as part of a project-based learning program with third-year Bachelor students (Electrical Engineering and Industrial Computing Department). The game components associated with the challenge proposed to the students comprised six key elements: objectives, challenges, mechanics, components, rules, and environment. Within the framework of the Industry 4.0 concept, this pedagogical activity focused on the knowledge, understanding, development, and application of an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system demonstrating the capabilities of this technology. This contribution outlines the various stages of the work assigned to the students. An industrial partner was also involved in this work.