As mobile devices have become more powerful and pervasive, mobile computing has become more important. As the market share of mobile operating systems steadily grows and more IT applications are developed and deployed on mobile devices, this will become a larger and increasing part of professional IT practice. Consequently IT students should gain experience creating and deploying mobile applications. We designed a project for a junior level operating systems course and asked 35 students to develop an application using one of the following leading mobile device software development kits: Apple iPhone, Microsoft Windows Mobile and Google Android. Students were free to select a platform and define their own applications. While iPhone has approximately 50% of the mobile OS market share, only 8 students selected iPhone as their development platform of choice, 15 selected Android, another 12 selected Windows Mobile. A post-project survey was administered to the students to evaluate the process of choosing a platform, hardware and software features used in their applications, and the overall learning experience. This provided several conclusions about preferences, future applications and learning. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and will help us improve future learning experiences.

In recent years there has been a confluence between different fields addressing the broad field of embedded computer systems (cyber-physical systems). Traditional microcontroller-based systems have become more capable and now frequently feature 32-bit processors with networking capabilities. Single-board computers have shrunk to credit-card size and low-cost systems are available-significantly overlapping the application domain of microcontroller systems and, thirdly, mobile platforms (smartphones, tablets, e-readers etc.) also share many characteristics of these systems and overlap their design and application domains. These systems each have their own design communities, tools and standard approaches. However their commonality and overlapping application domains indicate that they share common design problems. The evolution into newer application areas also brings new problems. The situation becomes more complex when these systems are integrated into larger diverse systems.Design approaches and design problems for these different types of embedded system are reviewed. Overlapping and nonoverlapping characteristics and design issues are analyzed. A comprehensive design approach tailored to these cyber-physical systems is proposed. The comprehensive approach addresses design issues not only for all three of the overlapping fields but also systems that incorporate aspects from multiple fields. It also includes factors sometimes neglected when systems are developed within their own narrower design domains.One of the findings of this investigation is that design in this domain requires a diverse set of skills, usually only found in multi-disciplinary teams. One discipline that is needed but has not traditionally contributed much in this domain is Information Technology. Another finding is that designers trained in the IT discipline with a systems-oriented approach have specific design skills that are necessary for successful design of these diverse systems.

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Mechatronics is integration of mechanical systems, electronics and intelligent computer control. With advances in computing power, size. and cost, university mechatronics courses can ofer more flexible, powerful and up-to-date development environments than traditionally available with pre-packaged robotics kits such as the widely used Handy Board plalform. Goals and constraints of teaching graduate-level mechatronics courses to an educationally diverse class ofstudents are discussed. Goals include identijying the purpose of a mechatronics course. educational background of the students, efects of recent technologies on course subject matter, and ideal development environment io create autonomous robots. Constraints arise because of conflicts between two major aspects ofmechatronics, mechanical systems and computer systems, and t h e need to balance these areas in complexity and ease o/ use for students o/ diverse backgrounds. Brigham Young University's prototype solution o/a PC/104 plalform with digital I/O and analog inputs running Linw and communicating via 802.11b Wi-Fi is discussed.