Since you have got a fair idea of how to realize small IoT projects, we'll provide you a simple open-ended task for you to implement.
We've used dweet.io and freeboard.io. Besides this, there are several other IoT platforms, such as Azure, IBM Bluemix, and Thingspeak. Your task is to simulate a similar thing on other IoT platforms. Azure and IBM requires you to sign up by the use of debit or credit card, but for the first month it's free and it can be used for IoT, while, on the other hand, Thingspeak is totally free and it has support for Matlab.