Traditional methods for teaching the design of embedded systems usually deal with either a hardware or a software view of the system. In computer science it is mostly the software view. The hardware issues taught mostly deal with CPU based systems only and seldom with reconfigurable hardware. We recommend having a more general view at embedded systems in the way that it is always a programmable hardware platform (CPU based or reconfigurable hardware) which has to be programmed in a suitable programming language. In this context we offer a lab course where students should get familiar with different hardware platforms used in embedded systems. They should solve the same task both with a CPLD and a microcontroller each in order to clarify the differences between the two implementations. In this paper our experiences in this field of embedded systems education are described as well as our plans to continue.

Abstract. An object recognition process in general is designed as a domain specific, highly specialized task. As the complexity of such a process tends to be rather inestimable, machine learning is used to achieve better results in recognition. The goal of the process presented in this paper is the computation of the pose of a visible robot, i. e. the distance, angle, and orientation. The recognition process itself, the division into subtasks, as well as the results of the process are presented. The algorithms involved have been implemented and tested on a Sony Aibo.

Abstract. This paper presents a test for measuring the C language knowledge of a software developer. The test was grounded with a web experiment comprising 151 participants. Their background ranged from pupils to professional developers. The resulting variable is based on the Rasch Model. Therefore single questions as well as the entire test could be assessed. The paper describes the experiment, the application of the Rasch Model in software engineering, and further concepts of measurement.