Computer Systems Design Competition at BYU

Transcription

1 Computer Systems Design Competition at BYU Michael J. Wirthlin Assistant Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Brigham Young University Provo, Utah Abstract The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at BYU has created a new senior project class for computer engineering students. This project class provides a multi-disciplinary team design experience for students interesting in the design of computerbased systems. The structure of this class is organized around the Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC) sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society. Students participating in this class are required to specify, implement, and test a computerbased system involving both hardware and software components. The most successful student team is selected to represent BYU in the IEEE CSIDC competition. This paper will describe the organization of this project class and demonstrate how the CSIDC contest can be used as a model for a senior project design class. I. INTRODUCTION The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Brigham Young University (BYU) has recently instituted a new senior project class to better meet the department outcomes and prepare students for work in industry. This required class provides students with a multi-disciplinary team design experience with a variety of projects sponsored by members of the faculty. Each faculty sponsored project supports multiple teams through a clearly defined engineering design project. Student involvement in these projects is enhanced by providing a competition between student teams participating in each project. Student feedback on this project format has been very positive. One of the six sponsored projects at BYU is a computer systems design project. The format of this class is organized around the IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC). Students participating in this project are expected to specify, design, and construct a computer system that includes both hardware and software components. During the semester, students are guided through the process of product specification, project scheduling, design review, and project reporting. Although the actual project design is completed by the students, faculty are involved to assist the students in team building, resolve teamwork problems, and to ensure the students have a positive senior level design experience. This project class has been sponsored for two years (2001 and 2002) and is currently in progress for the Winter semester of During each semester, this class supports 4-7 teams of four students each. At the end of this semester project, student team projects compete with each other during a project presentation and demonstration event. The winning team, determined by a group of faculty and alumni, is selected to represent BYU in the IEEE CSIDC contest. This paper will describe this senior project course and discuss lessons learned from the new senior project format. The paper will begin by describing the format of senior project classes at BYU. Next, the paper will provide an overview of the computer systems senior project including a history of the course. The challenges associated with this form of a senior project class will be discussed followed by a description of the current course organization. II. SENIOR PROJECT OVERVIEW The role of senior projects in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at BYU has changed significantly over the last fifteen years. In previous years, students worked alone on senior projects with limited participation from the faculty. The project itself was chosen by the student resulting in poorly scoped projects that were either too easy or far too challenging for an undergraduate student. In most cases, these student-chosen projects were unrelated to faculty interests and expertise. Most faculty viewed involvement in student senior project as a distraction. The lack of faculty involvement and poorly chosen student projects resulted in a poor project experience for both students and faculty. To improve the senior project experience, several faculty within the department experimented with a senior project Robot Soccer class [?]. The faculty, with research interests in control theory and embedded systems, organized a twosemester class involving the design and construction of mechanical robots that play soccer. Students are organized into teams and teams compete in a soccer competition at the end of the semester. This senior project class has been offered for several semesters and is very popular among students [?]. F1F-15

2 A. Faculty-Sponsored Senior Projects Based on the success of the robot soccer senior project, senior projects with similar goals were created by other faculty members. These faculty members proposed and organized senior design projects that match their research and professional interests. As more faculty participate in this senior project format, the department is able to provide a variety of senior projects to match student interest. Senior projects currently sponsored by the faculty include the following: Robot Soccer Students participating in the robot soccer senior project design and build a mechanical robot to play soccer. Students in this project become familiar with mechanical robot design, micro-controller programming, RF communication, artificial intelligence, low-level control algorithms, and computer vision. At the end of the semester, student teams compete in a one-on-one robot soccer competition. Software-Defined Radio Students participating in the software-defined radio project design and construct a digital QPSK receiver. As part of this project, students create a custom antenna and RF front-end circuitry. The students also program a digital signal processor (DSP) to demodulate the QPSK signal. Student teams compete against each other at the end of the semester by testing the performance of each digital receiver. VLSI Design and Test The VLSI senior project involves the fabrication and testing of a custom circuit at the MOSIS facility. Students participating in this project are required to design a VLSI circuit in a pre-requisite senior-level VLSI course. During the senior project course, students test their VLSI circuit and integrate their circuit into a working system. Example VLSI projects include a wireless communication interface, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and a T-1 serial interface. Space Education Activity Center This senior project involves the design and construction of a Star Trek-style optical fiber activity center for the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove, UT. The project provides a highly innovative human interface designed to help elementary students develop engineering and leadership skills via a role-playing futuristic activity involving optical circuitry. Student teams participating in this project must program an embedded micro controller, integrate optical circuitry, create control software, and develop an http-based Ethernet interface. Computer System Design The computer systems design project involves the design and construction of a computer system that includes both hardware and software components. Students participating in this project compete in the IEEE CSIDC. The actual project is defined by the constraints specified by the CSIDC contest organizers. This project will be discussed in more detail in this paper. Although the department currently supports several wellorganized projects, it is expected that the composition of senior projects will vary over time. Projects are constantly modified to reflect changes in faculty interests and goals. Some projects may be discontinued over time and new projects may be added as interesting senior project opportunities arise. We expect the senior project offering to constantly change to meet the changing needs of the faculty, department, and students. B. Business Lecture Although students may participate in one of several senior projects, all senior project students are required to participate in the senior project Business Processes lecture. This series of lectures, taken concurrently with the senior project class, provides students with a number of project management skills necessary for completing a the senior design project. Project management skills taught in this lecture series include: teamwork skills, project specification, project planning and scheduling, engineering economics and presentation skills. In addition to project management skills, this lecture series provides a number of important lectures to meet ABET requirements and department objectives. A representative from industry visits the students to discuss ethics in engineering and important ethical issues facing engineering professionals. Students are also taught the importance of lifelong learning and discuss ways of continuing learning after leaving the university. Teaching the business process lectures in conjunction with the senior project class helps prepare students to participate meaningfully in the team design experience. III. COMPUTER SYSTEMS DESIGN PROJECT One of the six sponsored projects at BYU is a computer systems design project. The goal of this senior project is to provide students with an embedded computer systems design project that involves the specification, implementation, and testing of both hardware and software. The class is intended primarily for computer engineering students with interests in embedded systems, computer architecture, digital design, and software engineering. This project class has been sponsored for three years during the Winter semesters of 2001, 2002, and The format of this senior project is organized around the IEEE CSIDC design contest[?]. The goal of this IEEE sponsored competition is to further the engineering education of students by encouraging student teams to design and implement computer-based solutions to real-world problems. The competition emphasizes teamwork, creative design, implementation, and testing of computer systems. The IEEE design contest was initiated in 1999 and is currently in progress for the fourth time during the school year. F1F-16

3 The CSIDC format was chosen for the BYU computer systems project for several reasons. First, the goals of the CSIDC are closely aligned to the goals of the BYU computer systems design project. Both the CSIDC and the computer systems project involve the design, implementation, and testing of a computer-based system. Second, the scope and time-line of the CSIDC project fit nicely into the one-semester project format at BYU. Third, the competitive nature of this contest motivates students to participate in the project to a much greater level. Experience with robot soccer and softwaredefined radio projects has shown that students are much more involved and interested in a project when they compete against other student teams. Fourth, participation in the CSIDC provides students with the opportunity to participate in a wellorganized, externally sponsored design competition. Feedback from external reviewers and interaction with students from other universities has been a positive reward for students participating in the competition. IV. CLASS HISTORY The computer systems senior project class has been taught for three years and continues to undergo steady modifications and improvements. Interest in the class continues to grow as improvements are made to the class and exposure increases in the design competition. This section will discuss the history of this class by summarizing the projects of the three project classes. A. Winter Semester 2001 The computer systems senior project class was first introduced in the Winter semester of This particular year was the second annual CSIDC sponsored by IEEE. During this year of the CSIDC, contest sponsors provided students with Bluetooth ØÑ wireless development kits. Students were expected to design, implement, and test a Bluetooth-enabled system using the contest kits. During this semester, 13 students enrolled in the class and were organized into three different teams. Each team defined their own project and successfully implemented a system using the Bluetooth development kits. The teams competed against each other at BYU and the winning team was selected to participate in the CSIDC competition. The projects developed by teams in this class include the following: Bluetooth wireless automotive diagnostics system Bluetooth medical smart card Bluetooth access point (TCP/IP - Bluetooth bridge) B. Winter Semester 2002 Based on the overall success of the senior project class in 2001, the class was offered again during the Winter of Like This team from BYU placed third at the CSIDC finals in Washington D.C. the previous year, the CSIDC competition involved the use of Bluetooth technology. During this semester, 18 students enrolled in the class and were organized into 5 teams. The projects developed by students during this semester include the following: Bluetooth financial transaction system Ý Bluetooth fitness and training watch Wireless fast-food menus for PDAs Wireless audio channel selection headset Wireless intercom system C. Winter Semester 2003 The computer system design senior project recently completed in the Winter semester of Unlike the previous two years, the 2003 CSIDC competition does not provide a standard hardware platform. Instead, students are allowed to create a project based on any available technology. Spending limits are placed on the project to give all students an equal opportunity to compete. Although the CSIDC competition allows students to use any available hardware, students participating in the project at BYU were required to create projects based on the global positioning system (GPS) technology. Each team was provided with the same GPS development kit and software. Choosing a common technology platform allows the faculty advisor to prepare common technology training and provide more consistent support. The GPS projects developed by students during this semester include: Þ. GPS audio navigation System Theme park group tracker GPS-enabled tour guide GPS fleet tracking and reporting system Position-based wireless network navigator GPS-enabled pet tracking and virtual fencing During the first three years of this senior project, 58 students and fifteen student teams have created working computer-based projects (see Table I). Each student participated in a multi-disciplinary team and completed a major computer-based design project. All teams created and demonstrated a computer-based project involving hardware and software components. Student interest in this class continues to increase as improvements are made each semester. This computer systems project class will continue to be taught during the Winter semester for the foreseeable future. V. CLASS CHALLENGES Although student teams have successfully completed computer-based projects, this senior project class is not without its problems. This class format posses a number of Ý This team from BYU was selected as a CSIDC finalist. Þ No team from BYU was selected as a CSIDC finalist in F1F-17

4 Semester Teams Students Project Domain Winter Bluetooth Wireless Comm. Winter Bluetooth Wireless Comm. Winter Global Positioning Systems Total TABLE I SENIOR PROJECT CLASS PARTICIPATION unique challenges that must be addressed to ensure a positive, multi-disciplinary design experience for senior students. The three most important challenges facing this project include the following: assisting students in selecting an appropriate project, providing adequate technical support, and assisting students with team management problems. A. Choosing Appropriate Projects Because of CSIDC requirements, faculty are not allowed to select and define the computer-based project. Faculty mentors are required to play an advisory role in the project identification and avoid direct involvement in selecting and implementing the final project. While this restriction helps ensure a level playing field between competing CSIDC teams, it requires students to identify and select the computer-based project Because of their limited experience, students struggle to choose projects that are appropriate for a one semester project course. Undergraduate students are notoriously poor at estimating the effort of technical projects. In most cases, students significantly over estimate the scope of senior projects. One of the biggest challenges of this project format is ensuring that students select an appropriate project for the time frame and skill level of team members. It is essential that student teams select an appropriate project as soon as the semester begins. Because of the project course is limited to a single semester, students do not have the luxury of iterating over project ideas throughout the semester. With a 14-week semester at BYU, students must identify the project within the first two weeks to ensure adequate time for implementing and testing the final project. Students that fail to identify a project early or specify an overly ambitious project quickly fall behind and struggle the entire semester. To simplify the project selection phase, a common technology platform is chosen for all teams. Forcing projects to use a common technology limits the design space available to the students and allows students to more quickly identify an appropriate team project. In past projects, Bluetooth wireless technology and GPS were used as the common technology platform. Although limitations are placed on the technology available to students, student teams are allowed to select a project based on personal interests and skills. Past experience with this course format demonstrates that students choose a variety of creative and innovative projects using a single technology platform. Another way to assist students in the project selection process is to schedule activities within the first two weeks specifically for project selection. During the first week of the semester, students are required explore several ideas as part of a team-building exercise. This activity forces the students to identify several possible project ideas while encouraging early team interaction. During the second week, the faculty advisor meets with each team to discuss the project idea and provide appropriate feedback. If necessary, the faculty will iterate over the project idea with the team to ensure that the project is within the capability of the students. Ideally, the faculty advisor gives approval for each team project by the end of the second week. Project design and implementation begins immediately after students receive approval for their project specification. B. Technical Support Another unique challenge to this project class is providing students with the appropriate level of technical support. As suggested earlier, faculty mentors do not play an active role in the design, implementation, or testing of student projects. Instructions to CSIDC mentors state that the faculty mentor provides guidance and advice, but does not materially participate in the design and implementation of the project. Although direct faculty involvement is not allowed, students will need direction and help solving technical problems during the course of the project. Faculty mentors must balance the need to provide appropriate technical support while insuring that they do not materially participate on any given student project. One approach used for providing appropriate technical support in this class is to create technical lectures. These lectures, taught early in the project semester, are carefully chosen to provide students with the specific training and skills necessary to complete the project. There are several types of technical lectures taught during the semester. First, lectures are provided to present details on the common technology platform used by all student teams. These lectures prepare students to use the Bluetooth, GPS, or other specific technology chosen for the class. Second, technical lectures are provided to train students to use any tools needed by the project. These tools may include software environments (i.e. Microsoft.NET programming environments), embedded software tools, PCB board layout tools, and programmable hardware design tools. Third, technical lectures are created to teach students specific technical skills needed to complete the project. Although senior project students will have completed the core computer engineering curriculum classes, additional F1F-18

5 skills may be needed to complete the chosen computer-based project. Another approach for providing useful support to student teams is to provide a class teaching assistant (TA). Like the faculty mentor, a TA does not directly participate in the development of student projects. However, a TA can provide an invaluable resource for student teams during project implementation and testing. Student teams often face technical problems that are difficult to solve and require a large amount of student time. TAs can be used to help students through the problem-solving process and demonstrate solid troubleshooting skills. This form of support allows students to solve difficult problems more quickly while learning new skills. Based on feedback from students taking the course during the 2001 and 2002 semesters, teaching assistants were hired for the 2003 semester. Two TAs were employed to teach several technical lectures and provide training for the course tools and software. These TAs developed a simple working project prototype to demonstrate key design principles and provide a debugging platform. TAs worked closely with struggling teams to teach debugging techniques and testing strategies. Student feedback from the course suggested that TA support significantly improved the project learning experience. C. Team Management Like any team-based engineering project, student project teams occasionally suffer teamwork problems that limit the effectiveness of the team to complete the project. While such teamwork problems can be an important learning experience, faculty involvement is often necessary to assist teams in solving team problems and organizing team activities. This section will discuss some of the techniques used in this class to help students manage their teams and resolve team problems. The first team management challenge that faces this project is the forming of student teams. Because the project schedule is so limited, forming teams early is essential: for this class, teams are formed during the first week of the semester. Student teams are formed by the faculty on the basis of student preferences and student background. To facilitate the creation of functional teams, student preferences are given priority. Once student preferences are addressed, complete teams are formed by considering the class background and scholastic aptitude of students in the class. Student background is considered to form teams that have all the necessary skills and are roughly equal in overall aptitude Ü. One unique challenge associated with participation in the CSIDC project is forming teams that comply with the Ü It would be possible to create a super team composed of the brightest students in the class to improve the changes at the CSIDC competition. This approach has been avoided to guarantee that the strongest students are included within all participating teams. student eligibility rules. The CSIDC contest requires student participants to be full-time university students and not working in a full-time technical position. While this requirement does not affect most students, there are invariably students enrolled in the senior project class that do not meet these eligibility requirements. The faculty advisor is placed in the awkward position of enforcing these rules while providing a positive project design experience. The solution taken for this class is to combine ineligible students into a single team. During each time this project class has been taught, an ineligible team has been formed. This team is composed of ineligible students and eligible students who are willing to forgo the CSIDC competition. While this solution allows ineligible students to participate in the project class, it almost always results in a poorly motivated team that struggles to complete an adequate senior project. Once teams have been formed, resources are provided to assist teams in teamwork management skills. First, business lectures are provided to guide students through the process of project selection, specification, scheduling, implementation, and testing. These lectures, taught early in the project semester, provide students with the skills necessary managing a complex student project. Second, meetings between the students and faculty advisor are scheduled periodically throughout the semester to identify and resolve team problems. These meetings include a project proposal, design review, and progress report. Feedback from students indicates that these meetings are an invaluable resource for addressing team problems. The open contest format of the CSIDC poses a number of challenges to a senior project class. The challenges include helping students select an appropriate project, providing adequate technical support, and teaching students to manage a large team project. With careful planning, appropriate training, and department support, faculty advisors can address each of these issues and provide a positive project course that meets the department goals. D. Department Support VI. CLASS SCHEDULE The computer systems senior project is organized as single semester, four credit-hour course. All course activities are scheduled within the fourteen week semester at BYU. Each week of the class is carefully planned to guarantee that all project activities are completed within this compressed schedule. This section provides an overview of the schedule followed by this computer design senior project course. The schedule for this project class is divided into three phases: team organization and training, project implementation, and project testing and reporting. The activities associated with each phase and week are summarized in Table II. Each of these phases will be described in greater detail below. F1F-19

6 Week Business Technical Project Lecture Lecture Management 1 Teamwork GPS Overview Team selection Identifying Customer Needs 2 Concept Generation Microsoft MFC Tutorials Project selection Project Specification PCB Schematic Tutorials 3 Team Building UART & Embedded Processor Tutorials Project proposal GPS Interfacing 4 Lifelong Learning PCB Layout Tutorial Project Scheduling 5 Presentation Skills Software Engineering Business Processes 6 Engineering Economics Design Reviews 7 Manage your Boss Engineering Ethics Design Reviews Status Report 13 Class Evaluations 14 Final Report Project Demonstrations TABLE II COMPUTER SYSTEMS PROJECT CLASS SCHEDULE. A. Team Organization and Training During the first phase of the project (weeks 1-4), teams are organized and receive essential project-specific training. As described earlier, it is essential that student teams are formed and appropriate projects identified within the first two weeks of the class. As shown in Table II, students meet regularly during the first two weeks in both business and technical lectures. Business lectures taught during this phase include teamwork, identifying customer needs, project specification, and project scheduling. Teams also meet regularly with the project advisor to iterate over project ideas and refine the project specification. Student teams also receive project-specific training during the first phase of the project. Table II lists the technical lectures provided for the GPS project taught in the Winter of Technical lectures are created to provide general skills needed by all student teams. Technical lectures taught during the GPS project include Microsoft foundation class programming, printed circuit board (PCB) design, Microchip embedded processor tutorials, and GPS interfacing techniques. An assignment is included with each technical lecture to ensure students obtain the skills necessary to complete their project. Although students do not begin working on their actual project design, they are adequately prepared to implement the project during the next phase of the class. B. Project Implementation During the second phase (weeks 5-9), teams use the skills obtained in the previous phase to implement their specified project. Fewer lectures are provided during this phase so that students may have more time to spend on their project implementation. Business lectures taught during this phase include presentation skills, engineering economics, and working with a project manager. The most important event of this phase is a mid-semester design review. Each team is required to meet with the faculty advisor and present the current state of the project and identify any project complications. This design review allows the faculty advisor to monitor the progress of the teams and provide important feedback on the project. This feedback allows student teams to refine the project specification and quickly resolve difficult project problems. C. Project Testing and Reporting The last project phase (weeks 10-14) involves project testing and reporting. At week 10 of the project, students are wrapping up the project and preparing the project for final testing. While certain technical problems may face the project, no new features or capabilities are added. Students use this time to finalize project details, provide an appropriate project enclosure, and measure project performance. In addition to project testing, students prepare final project reports and presentations. Student teams are required to submit a final report describing their project and its implementation. The final report specifications provided by the CSIDC are used to evaluate student teams. The final activity of this project class involves project demonstrations and presentations. In conjunction with all department senior project classes, student teams create display booths to demonstrate their project to the campus community F1F-20

7 and project judges. The campus community and alumni are invited to view all senior projects and take part in a department open house. After the informal project demonstrations, students participate in formal project presentations. Using judges chosen locally from industry, student projects and presentations are judged and ranked according to the CSIDC criteria. The winning team is selected and chosen to represent BYU at the CSIDC competition. The schedule followed by this senior project class is designed so that students are able to work at steady and reasonable level of effort throughout the semester. If managed properly, student teams are able to complete a complete computer-based system without the typical all night effort seen by students at the end of the semester. Although the organization of this class is not perfect, students have demonstrated an ability to complete a multi-disciplinary teambased project within the limited 14-week semester at BYU. VII. CONCLUSIONS The BYU computer systems senior project has been taught for three years and successfully provides a computer-based embedded systems design project for computer engineering students. The IEEE Computer Systems International Design Contest provides a nice structure for this class by sponsoring a well-organized contest-oriented design project. The organization of this class continues to improve and student interest in the class continues to grow. This class will continue to be offered for the foreseeable future. F1F-21