IISES International Academic Conference, London

INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING PROGRAMMING WITH PROBLEM SOLVING PRACTICE ON COMPUTER AND ARDUINO BASED EMBEDDED SYSTEM

BOCHUN ZHU, KWEE TECK TAN, SHOOK FONG LAU, CHEW LIN CHIA, KWEE YIN FONG, NGAI ANDY, YEOW CHEE FONG, CHEN BARBERA, MANAP FAZIL

Abstract:

The first semester year one module Introduction to Engineering Programming (IEP) for the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (School of EEE) in Singapore Polytechnic (SP) has been revamped from the previous Structured Programming which taught students computer programming on PC in C++. The IEP module learning objectives are: to learn the basics of computer programming on PC; to learn the basics of programming on simple embedded system; to apply the programming knowledge in designing and implementing simple engineering applications that run on computer and simple engineering applications that run on basic embedded system. Students are taught computer programming in the first half of the module to build foundation with hands-on practice in engineering application. In the second half of the module, programming on basic embedded system is added with hands-on in engineering application using hardware. At the end of the module, students design, implement and demonstrate working software program running on basic embedded system as a simulated solution to a United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)(United Nations, 2023) related problem identified by the students, which serves as school of EEE students’ first experience to various stages of engineering (software) design process and exposure to the Conceive-Design-Implementation-Operation (CDIO) framework. The first run of IEP module in semester 1 of the 2022-2023 Academic Year (AY) showed that students were able to cope programming on both PC and basic embedded system. Students were satisfied that they could see how electronics worked with coding, especially they could apply the programming skill acquired in the module to develop an engineering solution to real life problem.

Keywords: Computer Programming, Engineering Programming, Engineering Application, CDIO