Abstract:

The adoption of digital twins in engineering education is often limited by the high cost and technical complexity of industrial platforms. This paper presents a low-cost and pedagogically grounded approach to introduce digital twin concepts to Industrial Engineering students through the Conceive–Design–Implement–Operate (CDIO) framework. The experience is based on a final capstone project in which a student developed a functional cyber-physical prototype for home automation, integrating an Arduino-based sensing and actuation system with a Nextion HMI for real-time visualization and control.

The proposed educational approach guides students through the complete CDIO cycle:
(1) Conceive — definition of requirements for a low-cost digital twin for domestic environments;
(2) Design — architecture of the physical and digital layers, communication flows, and user interface;
(3) Implement — construction of the prototype and synchronization between physical states and their digital representation; and
(4) Operate — validation, testing, and evaluation of the system in realistic scenarios.

Although the resulting twin offers limited model fidelity compared to industrial solutions, the low-cost nature of the platform improves accessibility and supports meaningful learning of core principles of automation, the internet of things (IoT) and human–machine interaction (HMI).

Preliminary educational results indicate that the CDIO-based methodology improves the students’ understanding of cyber-physical systems, promotes system-level thinking, and enables the practical integration of hardware and software components. The paper discusses the pedagogical implications of using affordable digital twin prototypes, identifies limitations, and proposes future extensions such as remote connectivity, simulation layers, and multi-student collaborative integrations. The approach provides a scalable and replicable way to incorporate digital twin literacy into undergraduate engineering programs.

Keywords:

Digital Twin Education, Low-Cost Prototyping, CDIO Framework, Cyber-Physical Systems, Home Automation.