TY  - CONF
T1  - Optimizing Subject Design, Timing, and Focus in a Diversity of Engineering Courses through the Use of a Low Cost Arduino Shield
A1  - Gongora, Andres
A1  - Fernández-Madrigal, Juan-Antonio
A1  - Cruz-Martín, Ana
A1  - Arevalo-Espejo, Vicente
A1  - Galindo, Cipriano
A1  - Sánchez-Garrido, Carlos
A1  - Monroy, Javier
A1  - Fernandez de Cañete, Javier
TI  - ICERI2020 Proceedings
Y1  - 2020
SP  - 443
EP  - 450
T2  - International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation
CY  - Seville
KW  - Control systems engineering
KW  - Embedded real-time systems
KW  - Engineering training board
KW  - Microcontroller educational board
N2  - This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a novel circuitry that extends the popular Arduino UNO microcontroller board to facilitate multiple educational activities in engineering courses. In particular, the aim of this board, the UMA-AEB, is to minimize the overhead that is usually imposed on the students before they can conduct the actual exercises, yet retain the valuable experiences that could otherwise not be acquired with simulated experiments or inflexible electronic training-benches. The UMA-AEB is also meant to bring analog and digital electronics closer to other common disciplines in engineering, such as high-level programming languages (e.g. MATLAB) or Real-Time Operating Systems (e.g. FreeRTOS), by easing its connection to a personal computer for control and debugging. The features on the UMA-AEB range from simple input-output devices like a potentiometer, several buttons, eight individually addressable LEDs and a seven-segment display, to more advanced components like an SPI memory module for data-logging, a configurable resistive-inductive-capacitive (RLC) first and second order resonator, and a bidirectional analog-digital interface supporting -10 to  10 V, a common range for most college-level laboratory classes. The resulting design can be manufactured at a significantly lower cost than other similar devices (around 50€ not considering labor costs such as component-soldering and basic diagnoses), and both simulation and real tests have demonstrated that the obtained functionality agrees accurately enough with our design requirements after suitable calibration methods. We intend to use the board in very diverse subjects in the next years; up to date, we have already included it in a control systems course (graduate) and in embedded real-time courses (undergraduate and master), as well as student dissertation projects and a web-accessible electronics-laboratory. Hence, we present the possibilities of our shield for these and other courses and also some educational results obtained in the past academic years.
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