Anytime, Everywhere - Approaches to Distance Labs in Embedded Systems Education

Abstract

Embedded Systems education is a vitalpart ofthe computer engineering curriculum. Increasing numbers ofstudents stress our lab capacities, time constraints encumber working students whereas handicapped students often have dif/iculties attending the lab. Our project "Seamless Campus: Distance Labs"'1 introduces remote-teaching into our hardware-centered courses. These courses are slightly differentfrom other programming courses thatfocus on the development of typical application software where setting up a development environment on the students PCs is a relatively easy task. With this paper we will investigate the additional requirements that arise for different types ofembedded system labs. We examine three possible concepts for implementing distance labs. A crucial aspect for the acceptance of remote labs is that as much as possible ofthe 'feeling" ofthe on-site workplace is retained with the remote workplace setup. Therefore we will give a guideline how the "hands-on" aspect of hardware-centered courses can be retained with remote labs.

An Innovative Remote-Lab Framework for Educational Experimentation

“…This social framing is reported in [7]; students who were not conscious that they were interfacing with real remote hardware were more likely to describe the remote labs assignments as pointless and tedious. As a result, to build a successful remote lab, it should feel like a real lab.…”

“…Also, it cannot be claimed that it can reproduce the gestalt of being actually in the lab. That is why remote labs are called the "Second Best to Being There" [7]. Furthermore, students cannot experience the additional steps in a typical hands-on lab like setup the experiment before the session and teardown the setup after the session.…”

“…Furthermore, remote labs are not only restricted to remote teaching but also can serve industrial purposes [7]:…”

“…the addition of new remote labs should not require any modification to the core modules, or worse, the architecture. As reported in many remote labs, the complexity associated with developing new remote labs or even maintaining existent remote labs is one of the major obstacles to the wide spread of remote labs [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. 2.…”

Laboratorio remoto para la enseñanza de la programación de un robot industrial

“…Los laboratorios remotos presentan diversas ventajas frente a los laboratorios presenciales. En primer lugar, dan la oportunidad a los estudiantes de realizar prácticas evitando la necesidad de transportarse hasta un determinado recinto, y por otra parte, pueden tener acceso a los equipos sin restricciones de tiempo, lo que facilita les facilita la realización de prácticas adicionales para reforzar y adquirir una mayor comprensión de los conceptos aprendidos, además de adquirir mayores habilidades en el manejo de los equipos de laboratorio [5], [7].…”