The challenge of building a cyber physical system as an educational experience

Building Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is highly multidisciplinary as it requires mastering several disciplines such as embedded computing, control and communications theory. It therefore seems appropriate setting challenges to students in the final years of study in this area. This paper presents an educational experience developed by the students of Computer Engineering in Management and Information Systems Degree at the University College of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz. As part of an elective course in the last year students developed a small project where they could apply and reinforce concepts learned in previous courses. This experience allowed the students to reinforce skills already acquired in previous courses (like programming, operating systems, and communication networks) and other generic skills of such as effectively working in groups, integrating different technologies, proactive problem solving, or cope with the complexity of the systems.