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second-proposal.txt
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second-proposal.txt
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A Craft-First Introduction to Electronics
Matt Jadud, Danny Barnes*, Jan Pearce (Berea College), Mel Chua (Purdue University), Sebastian Dziallas* (Olin College)
* Undergraduate collaborator
Summary
Recently developed platforms like the Arduino ($20) and Raspberry-Pi ($35) have become accessible means of exploring computing at and near the hardware level. These systems are affordable enough for beginning students of computing to explore the realm where software meets hardware. This summer, we will develop a series of hands-on laboratories (and supporting textual/visual/video materials) that bridge the gap between electronics and computing by introducing students to the fundamentals of electronics using low-cost, open hardware systems. All work will be released under the GPL, Creative Commons, or other appropriate licenses, leading to an open curriculum usable by both other institutions and independent learners. To support this work, we request $2253.90 to help cover travel costs and food.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Our aim is to develop a lab-centric approach to introductory digital electronics. Following the work of Clancy et al. [LAB], this will be a collaborative, lab-centric introduction to a topic that is traditionally taught through theory-first lecture. We intend the course to prepare students to continue their explorations of programming, digital electronics, and computing beyond the classroom, empowering them to explore the wealth of materials that open software and hardware systems provide.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Lab-centric instruction encourages students to engage actively in learning in and out of the classroom, emphasizing "learning to do" over "learning about" through hands-on activities when faculty and teaching assistants are present to model behavior and provide context and support [LAB]. Along with building, testing, programming, and creating digital systems, reflective activities (like discussion and writing in laboratory notebooks) will be interspersed throughout the collaborative sessions students engage in.
Our choice of open hardware is not unique. The Arduino has proven to be incredibly popular in the hobbyist (or "maker") space, and is rapidly finding a home in computing and engineering classrooms around the globe [HANDSON]. We are particularly interested in its applicability to traditional crafts, as this provides a means for integration with a broader range of curricula and outreach to a wider range of students [LILYPAD].
METHODOLOGY
Our work breaks down into three distinct periods, with a full-group follow-up taking place during the spring of 2013.
[ Bootstrap ] During the first two weeks, the entire team (plus two undergraduate collaborators) will meet at Berea College to begin the design and development process. This work will allow for remote participation through the use of wikis, blogs, and other tools that support real-time remote collaboration and transparency. We will work to make our process accessible to outside communities and employ their feedback to rapidly create new iterations of course materials.
[ Development ] The month of July will be spent developing and refining materials for use during the first two course offerings. Team member Mel Chua will work remotely while visiting and researching ABET-certified engineering programs across the US.
[ Delivery ] The course will be delivered for the first time during the fall semester of 2012 by Matt Jadud. The group will make revisions for the second offering of the course which will run in the spring of 2013.
[ Continuation ] At SIGCSE 2013, we will meet as a group to share the results of our work and evaluation in a special session with interested colleagues. Further, we intend to propose a Working Group for ITiCSE 2013 expanding on our work and exploring the intersection of computing, sensing, and ubiquitous computing [SENSE].
OUTCOMES
Our assignments, texts, videos, and other supporting materials will be made available via http://craftofelectronics.org/. This site will serve both as a point of distribution for materials produced as well as an open community of practice centered around learning introductory digital electronics through working on open hardware projects. The material design and development process is open to broad participation; we already have academics and engineers from outside the core team volunteering via our mailing list. Success will be measured both by the quality of student learning and the health of the community thus cultivated; because our work is open, our intent is to involve others in assessing both the learning activities as well as work produced. A complete course will be in place by the end of the summer of 2012, and will be offered every semester subsequently at Berea College for the foreseeable future. We intend to share our design, implementation and evaluation thereof via a variety of venues, not limited to the ACM SIGCSE conferences (SIGCSE, ITiCSE, and ICER).
TIME
* Matt Jadud and Sebastian Dziallas will be tasked full-time from June 15th through August 2nd on this project.
* Mel Chua will be full-time from June 15th through July 1st, and part-time from July 1st through August 2nd.
* Two undergraduate collaborators (Danny Barnes + TBA) will be working full-time on this project from June 15th through August 2nd.
BUDGET
Funding to support Danny Barnes (room/board/wage, Berea College) and Sebastian Dziallas (travel, Red Hat POSSE grant, and wage, I2E2 at Olin College) have been secured previously. Here, we request a small amount of travel support and funding for food for the group while working together.
* Round-trip travel for Mel Chua
We request $321.90 to support round-trip travel for Mel Chua from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) to Berea College (Berea, KY), a trip of 290 miles (2 * 290 miles * $0.555/mile). Arrive June 15th, depart July 1st.
* Food Costs
We request $1932 for food over a six week period. Using the per diem rate of $46/day from the U.S. General Services Administration, we calculate 6 weeks of co-location at Dr. Jadud's home during the summer (7 days/week * 6 weeks * $46/day).
* Total
Our total budget request is $2253.90.
REFERENCES
[LAB] Titterton, N., Lewis, C. M., & Clancy, M. (2010). Experiences with lab-centric instruction. Computer Science Education (Ed. Y. Ben-David Kolikant) 20(2). 79--102. DOI: 10.1080/08993408.2010.486256
[HANDSON] John Vaughn. 2012. Hands-on computing with Arduino. J. Comput. Sci. Coll. 27, 6 (June 2012), 105-106.
[LILYPAD] Leah Buechley, Mike Eisenberg, Jaime Catchen, and Ali Crockett. 2008. The LilyPad Arduino: using computational textiles to investigate engagement, aesthetics, and diversity in computer science education. In Proceedings of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 423-432. DOI=10.1145/1357054.1357123 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1357054.1357123
[SENSE] Richards, Michael; Petre, Marian and Bandara, Arosha (2012). Starting with Ubicomp: using the SenseBoard to introduce computing. In: 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 29 February - 3 March 2012, Raleigh, NC.