Programming is Invisible – or is it? How to Bring a First-year Programming Course to Life

摘要

Abstract Programming is Invisible – or is it? How to Bring a First‐year Programming Course to Life At Unnamed University, the first‐year engineering curriculum is common for all majors and the general engineering courses typically have 20 to 25 separate sections of approximately 30 students each. The College of Engineering requires an Engineering Design course during the entering semester in which teaching principles of engineering and design is accomplished through “hands‐on” tasks for students in areas such as problem formulation, creativity stimulation, construction work, and associated reporting in relation to projects that students produce in teams. There is a strong emphasis on applying technical knowledge in a practical way and on developing analytical problem‐solving and decision‐making skills. In the second semester, a course titled ‘Engineering Problem Solving with Computation’ centers on the practicality and applicability of logical solutions to real‐life problems using software tools such as Mathworks’ MATLAB and the C++ programming language. This second ‘programming’ course had not fully made the connection between software that has been written to solve a practical problem and how it might be used to run hardware in a visible –and experiential– way. Students have asked why they need to learn programming and often would miss the association that many aspects of our daily existence are dependent upon software running hardware. It is not enough to tell students that required attributes to be a good engineer involve being proficient in problem solving and algorithmic thinking. Therefore, it was decided to implement a hands‐on component in the programming‐based course to emphasize the importance of understanding how software and hardware are interlaced. The hardware‐application approach contrasts some of the more traditional methods used to teach algorithmic thinking skills and problem solving to first‐year engineering students. This paper will describe computing projects were added to the course that are used to control physical hardware in order to make a strong connection to the many embedded computing applications used in students’ everyday experiences. Moreover, watching computer instructions produce light, sound, and motion engages the senses and provides the sort of immediate feedback that is essential for constructive learning. In order to accomplish the goal of introducing a low‐cost, easily integrated, hands‐on laboratory to over 600 students, Unnamed University teamed with the not‐for‐profit Anonymous Corporation and a pilot study was formed using a custom kit of electronic components in the Spring of 2010. The success of the pilot study resulted in a full rollout to all first‐year engineering students in the following Spring. The kit for this “machine science” initiative includes a solderless breadboard, an ATmega168 microcontroller, an LCD text display, button switches, LEDs, a piezo‐speaker, a liquid crystal text display, a light sensor, a temperature sensor, resistors, capacitors, and various wires and connectors. A complete set of components costs less than $100 and can be packed into a single 11" x 6 5/8" x 2 3/4" Sterlite® small clip box for easy storage. This compact form is critical since programming courses are typically taught in a classroom with computers, monitors, and very limited table space. Students learn to light up LEDs, activate and read photosensors, place messages on LCD screens, generate sound on speakers, and elicit other outcomes using programming constructs from class. Projects were mapped to real‐ world problems and practical applications, which will be described in the full paper. Evaluation of this new course component was essential in order to assess the value for the students. Students were surveyed prior to the implementation of the second iteration of the machine science module. They also provided feedback on several aspects of the module including the learning outcomes spec