Software Engineering Education Toolkit for Embedded Software Architecture Design Methodology Using Robotic Systems

Recently, industries need more effective software engineering education for undergraduate students as software plays an increasingly important role in consumer products. Specifically, the manufacturing industry emphasizes overall experience with software development processes from requirements to implementation in embedded software development. This paper proposes an educational toolkit focusing on architecture design methodology for embedded software and reports experience with teaching software engineering by using the toolkit. The toolkit has several tools that support methodology education. The toolkit consists of three perspectives: people, process, and technology. Each perspective represents a set of tools which can support educational activities. Particularly, the toolkit introduces LEGO MindStorms NXT as a robotic system to provide experiences with embedded software development, and visible and tangible course materials. We have conducted a case study based on the toolkit in undergraduate-level classes. The case study shows the toolkit can be successfully applied in undergraduate-level software engineering education.