A course for teaching integrated system design to computer engineering students

While cornerstone and capstone courses teach ”design” at the beginning and end of many computer engineering programs, a design gap is left in the sophomore and junior years. This paper describes the development and experiences of teaching five semesters of a specialized design course for a computer engineering program taught in the junior year. The course includes topics in software design patterns, multi-threaded applications, rudimentary user-interface design, embedded programming including sensor building and processing, and Zigbee-based wireless communications. The course is 2 semester credits (1-2-3), and includes a comprehensive project that requires students to build a tangible game or a game-like entertainment system. One key component of the course is the use of an open-source hardware platform called Arduino. The results are that students enjoy the course and are able to build integrated systems that incorporate design patterns, multithreading, embedded programming and wireless communication in an effective manner within one semester.