A Web App for Teaching Finite State Automata

TL;DR

This paper introduces finsm.io, an open-source web application designed to help students and instructors create, simulate, and export finite automata, enhancing teaching and learning experiences in automata theory.

Contribution

The paper presents finsm.io, a novel, user-friendly web tool for finite automata education, with positive feedback from extensive user testing over several years.

Findings

Overwhelmingly positive user recommendations

Improved learning and teaching experiences

Effective for use in finite automata courses

Abstract

We present the open-source tool finsm.io, a tool for creating, simulating and exporting deterministic and non-deterministic finite state automata (DFA/NFA). We first describe the conceptual background on which the tool is based, followed by a description of features and preliminary evaluation of the tool based on use spanning multiple years and hundreds of student users. Preliminary evaluation found that instructors and students overwhelmingly recommend the tool to others and agree that it has improved their learning and teaching. The authors invite interested educators to use the tool in their finite automata courses.