Teaching Software Engineering through Robotics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robotics programming course emphasizing software engineering principles like modularity and documentation, and reports initial positive outcomes in student understanding through surveys and assignments.

Contribution

It develops a multidisciplinary robotics course that integrates core software engineering concepts and evaluates its effectiveness with initial student data.

Findings

Students improved understanding of software engineering principles

Course effectively teaches modularity and documentation in robotics context

Positive initial student feedback and assessment results

Abstract

This paper presents a newly-developed robotics programming course and reports the initial results of software engineering education in robotics context. Robotics programming, as a multidisciplinary course, puts equal emphasis on software engineering and robotics. It teaches students proper software engineering -- in particular, modularity and documentation -- by having them implement four core robotics algorithms for an educational robot. To evaluate the effect of software engineering education in robotics context, we analyze pre- and post-class survey data and the four assignments our students completed for the course. The analysis suggests that the students acquired an understanding of software engineering techniques and principles.