Як навчати студентів онлайн за допомогою Embedded Starter Kit: досвід викладача електроніки

Vyacheslav Kulichenko, Senior Software Engineer, GlobalLogic and Associate Professor of the Department of Industrial and Biomedical Electronics of NTU “KhPI” , created an innovative solution that allows you to organize a remote workplace for a laboratory workshop on learning programming languages ​​and microcontroller systems.

Find out what led to this decision, how other teachers can apply it, and what experiences students have had.

When training specialists in the field of electronics, the acquisition of practical skills is an important component, especially when studying embedded systems. Most of the electronic devices used in everyday life and in many areas of industry are built on the basis of Embedded: from a New Year’s garland to a car control system. The main component of embedded systems is, of course, a microcontroller. It is working with this device that combines knowledge of electronics and the IT sphere. Thus, studying Embedded takes more and more time for students and requires a wider practical base to consolidate the acquired knowledge. 

Nowadays, the basis of the practical base is demonstration samples from various manufacturers of microcontrollers, which allow you to learn the basic capabilities and principles of working with them. Unfortunately, the problem with such training is that the demo samples have little functionality for the microcontroller itself to interact with the external environment, and their direction in use is more aimed at software developers. Of course, individual modules are connected to the demo samples, which in most cases are elements of the Arduino kit, but the large number of additional wires, unreliable contacts and lack of direct connection leads to a loss of interest on the part of students, because almost nothing works the first time. For students of education in the field of electronics, the process of building small systems with various sensors, display elements, transmission and storage of data, that is, such a system that would be similar to a small electronic product, is more interesting. 

Organization of remote work with Embedded Starter Kit

To get students interested in learning, GlobalLogic’s Embedded Starter Kits came in handy. It is a platform with a set of peripheral devices for various purposes, to which the STM32F407-DISC1 demo board is mounted. The board contains a modern 32-bit microcontroller STM32F407VGT6, which has a very wide functionality and a large number of outputs, which allows you to connect a large number of peripheral devices at the same time. Also convenient is the location of the programming system with the possibility of using a virtual COM port for communication with a personal computer. 

This combination of components of the Embedded Starter Kit made it possible to easily organize a remote workplace for a laboratory workshop on learning programming languages ​​and microcontroller systems. Such a workplace includes a personal computer with Internet access, an Embedded Starter Kit from GlobalLogic and a WEB camera for visual monitoring of the workplace. I would like to note that compensation for the possibility of direct influence on peripheral control elements, such as buttons and potentiometers, was fully replaced by control from the terminal of the operating system with data transfer through a virtual COM port.

How to build online learning with Embedded Starter Kit

During face-to-face training of students, the work with the Embedded Starter Kit fully covers the laboratory practice — from studying the peculiarities of the functioning of the microcontroller core to the mock-up of individual electronic devices. This allows you to fully develop practical skills in the study of embedded systems. Usually, the first stage of familiarization with the Embedded Starter Kit is to turn on one LED, then several, and then they begin to flash with different colors and frequencies. By adding buttons, you can change the LED blinking parameters and create a simple light garland with your own modes of operation. Next, we complicate things and start creating a weather station with the ability to measure temperature and air humidity. All the necessary elements are present on the Embedded Starter Kit platform with the ability to transfer results to a computer or output to a liquid crystal display. 

Each time, the requirements for the final product are increased, and therefore it is necessary to save the measurement data to FLASH memory or EEPROM. Each of the microcircuits has its own communication interface, which makes it possible to cover more widely the modes of the microcontroller system. Thus, temperature and humidity measurements are stored for the entire period between laboratory classes, and a user interface with several buttons located like a joystick and a symbol indicator is created for their viewing. 

The next block is the organization of the stabilizing platform, the principle of which is to control stepper motors and determine the position thanks to gyroscopes. This is where knowledge of mathematics and physics comes in handy, and programming moves into the field of describing the laws of automatic regulation. It is at this moment that students apply the theoretical knowledge they learned in previous courses and get answers to the question “Why did we need to know this?” 

Also, the Embedded Starter Kit is a powerful tool when working on bachelor’s and master’s theses, which allows students to model individual components of their electronic devices and perform the practical part related to the demonstration of embedded system programming skills.

Student feedback

The results of work with the Embedded Starter Kit from GlobalLogic are shared by students who, during their studies at the university, gained practical experience in the field of embedded systems and will be able to use it in their further career.

The Global Logic Embedded Starter Kit used the following elements : a 44780 LCD display, a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, and custom buttons connected to an external interrupt bus. There were no hardware problems during the work. Schematic solution for filtering the rattling of key contacts was taken as the basis for the implementation of similar functionality in the bachelor thesis. “, notes Oleksandr Manzhelei, a student of group E-619b.

” Embedded Starter Kit left an interesting impression, its wide functionality and the possibility of its addition made it possible to perform most of the tasks ,” notes Kyrylo Boyko, a student of the E-619b group. 

” Working with GlobalLogic’s Embedded Starter Kit brought me great pleasure and was very productive. The wide functionality of the system made it possible to efficiently perform the assigned tasks using the LCD display, the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, as well as user buttons with interruptions. The absence of hardware problems contributed to smooth operation, and I was satisfied with the functionality and capabilities of the Embedded Starter Kit ,” says Serhiy Logvynenko, a student of the E-619b group.

The availability of technical capabilities and the desire of students makes it possible to train future specialists in the field of development and programming of embedded systems, who will find their calling in the near future.