Received: 24 October 2018 | Accepted: 19 May 2019

DOI: 10.1002/cae.22134

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Teaching programming using dedicated Arduino

Educational Board

Izabela Perenc | Tomasz Jaworski | Piotr Duch

Faculty of Electrical, Electronic,

Computer and Control Engineering,
Institute of Applied Computer Science,
Lodz University of Technology, Lodz,
Poland
Correspondence
Tomasz Jaworski, Faculty of Electrical,
Electronic, Computer and Control
Engineering, Institute of Applied
Computer Science, Lodz University of
Technology, Stefanowskiego 18/22, 90‐537
Łódź, Poland.
Email: tomasz.jaworski@p.lodz.pl
Funding information
Lodz University of Technology, Faculty of
Electrical, Electronic, Computer and
Control Engineering, Grant/Award
Number: 501/12‐24‐1‐5418
Abstract
This paper presents a new approach to teaching programming to undergraduate
computer science students. A dedicated Arduino board along with custom
application programming interface (API) was introduced into programming
classes with a view to strengthen students’ engagement and improving the
attractiveness of the course. The students were presented with basic
functionalities of the board, which gave them a possibility to accomplish their
own projects—typically video games—without any background in electronics.
The level of engagement of the participants was observed by the tutors during
classes and also reviewed based on questionnaires filled by 347 first‐, second‐,
and third‐year undergraduates. The results indicated that the proposed
approach was well received by nearly 80%, while nearly 75% of the participants
expressed a wish to continue their Computer Science education using Arduino.
KEYWORDS
Arduino, Educational Board, introductory programming, learning‐by‐doing

1 | INTRODUCTION course path depends on the university). Courses typically

Learning never stops, acquiring new information is our
daily routine—this is what the current direction of
technology development demands. Learning new skills
has become key in becoming competitive and also opens
new possibilities on the job market. One of the essential
competencies of our century is computer programming.
In recent years, it has been strongly popularized in many
disciplines. Moreover, the increasing level of digitaliza-
tion and automation in almost every aspect of life means
that basic programming skills will generally be as
expected as the use of word processors, spreadsheets or
other office software is today.
One of the challenges inherent in teaching programming
is how to make it less theoretical and more engaging.
Programming classes may serve as an example of a course
that can be improved in this respect. During classes,
students learn to program in C, C++ or Java (the actual
take the form of writing console programs, which are not
very appealing due to the poor graphical appearance and
lack of interesting ways to interact with them. The problem
with engaging students in such courses results from the fact
that writing console applications offers few possibilities for
personal development of novice programmers. Students are
encouraged to choose IT majors mostly due to the ubiquity
of technology; however, all they usually receive during the
first few terms is a text window‐based software. This is not
to say, however, that console programming does not allow
any coding practice of most commonly known and
recognized algorithms. It simply lacks the visual attractive-
ness and user‐friendliness that have become a norm in IT
environments—web applications, mobile interfaces, ready‐
to‐use game engines, and so on.
To address the issue, the authors have attempted to
improve selected classes of Computer Science at the Lodz
University of Technology. Two courses were chosen

Comput Appl Eng Educ. 2019;1–12. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1
2 |
for this purpose: Introduction to Programming
(a two‐semester course for the first‐year students) and
Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS; an elective two‐
semester course for the third‐year students). The goal was
to provide students with an opportunity to observe
physical effects resulting from the code that they were
tasked to write. To that end, the Educational Board and
mobile platforms (programmable vehicles) were devel-
oped so that the students could implement their own
Arduino‐based project of their choosing.
2 | RELATED W ORK
The modern‐day students belong to the so‐called Digital
natives [1] demographic. They were born around 2000
and since birth, they have become accustomed to new
technologies—TVs, computers, tablets, game consoles,
and others. Their perception of technology has been
influenced by those media, and consequently, the old
approach to teaching programming, for instance starting
with the traditional “Hello world” program is no longer
appealing to them. They expect content that is both more
engaging and interesting and more relevant to the times
and contexts in which they function – the technologies
that they see in mainstream media such as, for example,
the Internet of Things (IoT).
The trend to change programming courses to become
more student‐friendly is evident at various universities.
Traditional methods of teaching programming, based on
writing only console programs, are no longer interesting for
students and can distort their view of programming as such.
Students feel that instead of learning things that may be
useful in their future work, they have to devote all of their
energy into learning syntaxes of programming languages
and, consequently, the practice of writing programs is
usually reduced to the trial‐and‐error approach [2,3].
A modern approach to teaching programming usually
involves introducing interactive media assets with visual
feedback such as Scratch [4–6] or Alice [7] that allows to
set a student's focus on understanding programming
concepts like loops, conditionals, and data variables. It
facilitates learning through visualization of code in
environments in which the results are pleasing to the
eye. Scratch can be especially helpful since it incorporates
a graphical block‐snapping programming method [1,5]
and lacks a syntactical barrier typical for a general‐
purpose programming languages [4,8].
Scratch is, however, targeted at primary to high school
students and, hence, can be considered merely a basic
and simple teaching aid. More advanced tools are
available for both students and educators such as
CREATE Lab Visual Programmer [9].
PERENC ET AL.
Interesting results can also be achieved by using the
gamedev approach where students create simple games in a
provided environment. The entire process can be organized
via e‐learning tutorials that act as guides through basic
concepts of programming, as well as algorithmic [10] or
object‐oriented programming (OOP) [11].
All these improvement efforts are crucial since
increasing technological development and its social
impact demand introduction of STEM (science, technol-
ogy, engineering, and mathematics) elements in the
education of children from an early age [8,12]. One
cannot forget that young people, despite being raised
around new digital technologies do not acquire the ability
to utilize them in a natural way [1].
Many students decide to choose Computer Science
studies because of previous experience with computers,
predominantly with games for mobile devices, consoles
or PCs. Hence, integrating games or play‐to‐learn
approaches into the study curricula may potentially
increase students’ engagement in the programming
course due to their familiarity [13,14]. Another approach
would be to incorporate into the learning process
elements of gamification [15–17], which utilize the
concept of rewards, for example, achievement systems
that are common in computer games [18]. Consequently,
students are motivated to perform tasks and gather
badges or decorations which are then presented in the so‐
called hall of fame [19,20]. Some universities are
implementing this idea in their entire Computer Science
education program [21–23].
On the other hand, new programming platforms such
as Intel Galileo, Arduino or Raspberry Pi can be
introduced into classes and lead to increased interest on
the part of students. The low‐level nature of those devices
makes it possible to easily expand their capabilities by
various available input/output modules. Using Arduino
in the learning process on how to design one’s own
system is an approach whose aim is to improve
programming skills among novice students [23–29].
Theoretical knowledge gained by students can be
implemented in real‐life applications [25], for example
for building LEGO robots [12,30] and thus the learned
concepts can be practiced and motivation level increased,
which is key in learning programming by engineering
students [31] and can be achieved through games and
entertainment [10,28,32].
3 | MOTIVATION
Lecturers often work with students that lack motivation
and interest in learning. This leads to poor grades and
low rate of knowledge retention. Both the observations
PERENC ET AL.
made by the authors and the available literature
[10,30,33] show that the efficiency of knowledge acquisi-
tion increases when a student can see and understand the
practical application of what he/she has just learned.
Moreover, the student's personal engagement in the
application as such has a positive effect on this efficiency.
Therefore, to provide an attractive and high‐quality
learning experience, dedicated aids were prepared. The
basic assumption was to impose only minimal limitations
on the student creativity when solving problems,
sufficient to lead them through prepared teaching
problems and tasks but without actually forcing them
into particular solutions.
Electronics is closely related to Computer Science and
can facilitate the demonstration of certain phenomena.
Light emitting diodes, displays, buttons or buzzers seem
to be interesting for students, and using them offers a
possibility to create individual projects based on students’
own ideas. Creating software with such devices in mind
seems to be more engaging than a typical console‐based
programming, characteristic for C‐family language
classes [30]. However, as students of Computer Science
have little to no knowledge of electronics, the optimal
solution would be to reduce involvement in electronics to
a minimum, for example by completely ruling out any
low‐level implementation details.
The desired effect is to give students a versatile tool
that they could use in many ways to develop projects
related to their own interests and ideas. The concept of a
simple and compelling project is especially important for
first‐year students, who are beginning to learn to
program despite limited skills[34]. Another appealing
concept is to teach students about the IoT [27,35–37] as
an idea that is gaining popularity on the high‐tech
markets (e.g., intelligent buildings [36]). Through giving
students a possibility to communicate between devices in
a classroom environment, it would be possible to create
interesting projects and develop new ideas in the domain
of IoT. The key concept is to give participants a variety of
communication methods between a set of devices, for
example, Bluetooth, Wi‐Fi, GSM or connectivity through
commonly used platforms, such as mobile devices [38].
4 | EDUCATIONAL BOARD
The electronic Educational Board was designed to satisfy
the above‐mentioned considerations. Arduino Due board
was chosen from among many available platforms, due to
its popularity, price, and performance. Due can be
programmed with a free Arduino IDE tool, which is an
official integrated development environment for Arduino
products. Moreover, it is very simple yet sufficient for the
| 3
intended tasks, which is quite important, since excessive
and diverse functionality of professional tools (e.g., MS
Visual Studio) can be overwhelming for first‐year students.
The device can be programmed through a USB cable on
any computer/laptop that is able to handle the Arduino's
integrated development environment, and it is a great
advantage in comparison to classical microcontroller
educational boards, which might be cheaper, but require
specific programming hardware and technical knowledge.
The users’ community focused on the Arduino
ecosystem is also of great significance. Since Arduino is
very popular among electronic enthusiasts, programs,
and various other creators [39], there exists a large variety
of resources on the Internet. Students can look through
them for hints while working on their assignments and
find answers to common problems. It relieves the lecturer
but, most importantly, it teaches students how to
formulate questions, search for and process available
data as well as analyze the ideas of others.
The experience gained while conducting the Computer
Science course allowed the authors to notice that students
are often afraid to connect components with cables by
themselves for fear of damaging it (some teachers adopt
the principle “you break – you buy,” which results in the
teaching outcomes that are opposite to the intended ones).
In addition, those actions take a lot of time before reaching
the functioning setup. Although students are gaining
knowledge during the process, it is not a direct goal of
programming classes. For this reason, the authors have
decided to design a custom electronic printed circuit board
(Figure 1), with a variety of input/output modules such as:
Eight LEDs – light emitting diodes (12), a LED matrix
display (6), a 128x64 graphical display (4), an alphanu-
meric display (5), a four seven‐segment displays (10), two
two‐axis joysticks (13), two keyboards – one with arrow
keys (15) and the other one with numerical keys (14), a
potentiometer (8), a buzzer (2), a Bluetooth module (3), an
audio amplifier (16), an ultrasonic distance sensor (11),
configuration switches (9) and a socket for connecting four
servo motors (1). All those modules are connected to the
central unit – an Arduino Due board (7).
In addition, a dedicated library was prepared to
facilitate the use of the Educational Board. The design
principle was to relieve the student of any low‐level
implementation details that could be considered distract-
ing and/or boring. Also, since the library is designed to
work with only one hardware configuration (the Board)
and only one toolchain (Arduino IDE + specific version
of GNU C compiler), its installation on the student
computer involves basic file management abilities—a
provided archive needs to be extracted into the user’s
standard Documents directory, typical for most com-
monly used operating systems.
4 |
A students’ workstation (Figure 2) includes the
Educational Board and a computer – Raspberry Pi 3. Its
use clearly demonstrates that the concept of a computer is
quite broad and at this point both Raspberry and the
Board satisfy its definition.
In addition, for ambitious students, if they express
such interest, they are granted access to sensors, direct
current (DC) drivers, cables, and other modules, such as
Bluetooth or a camera; so, provided they are experienced
users of the Board, they can tailor the equipment to their
own ideas and preferences. In such a case, they are
allowed to connect and prototype their own modules
FIGURE 2 A student workstation: Raspberry Pi, Educational
Board, computer monitor, mouse, and keyboard
PERENC ET AL.
FIGURE 1 Educational Board
designed for the purposes of the
Computer Science course
according to their needs. The goal is to give ambitious
students a possibility to develop their own ideas and to
touch, modify, check how electronics modules work.
5 | T H E ED UC A T I O N A L B O A R D
API L IBRARY
The Educational Board was designed primarily for first‐year
students of Computer Science, who were just getting
acquainted with the C programming language. Their lack
of experience along with a need to hide low‐level
programming details was taken into account during the
board’s application programming interface (API) designing
process. The main reason was to facilitate programming of
all available modules and to prevent discouragement of
students due to the possible information overload. The
library [40] was prepared in such a manner that it appears
to the user as a set of C functions despite its internals being
written in C++ (which is the base of Arduino firmware).
A part of the library’s functionality is similar to that of
console application; however, it is much more appealing
for the user from a visual point of view. For example, a
student can read a value from a computer’s keyboard and
display it on the screen, but it is more interesting to press
a button and display the chosen text on an LCD display.
Here, the change of working equipment makes the
difference. A first example is the classic Hello World
program, written with the developer API and compared
PERENC ET AL. | 5

to a console version presented in Listing 1 and Listing 2.

The student includes a single header file, which
constitutes all the necessary functionality.

#include <ISA.h>

void setup() {

lcd_print(hello, world!);
FIGURE 3 Hello World on the LCD display (Educational
}
Board)
void loop() {}

Listing 1: A classic Hello World program written with the

#include <ISA.h>
use of the developed library.
void setup () {

int i;
#include <stdio.h>
for(I = 0; I < 128; I++)
void main() {
oled_setPixel(i, i*0.5, true);
printf(Hello world);
}
}
void loop() {}

Listing 2: A classical Hello World console program. Listing 3: A line drawing code for the graphical display.

The informational outcome along with the complexity

of both the programs is exactly the same; however, the #include <stdio.h>
difference is in the visual perception. Both of them are int main() {
shown in Figures 3 and 4, respectively.
int i;
Thanks to the provided API, students were not
forced to find and read technical datasheets of each for(I = 0;i<30;i++)
used module, because all the necessary information printf("%*.0c /n", i*2, ’*’);
was gathered in one document. Using the library does
not require programming in C++, so the students were return 0;
not overloaded with new OOP concepts and could }
focus on the core activity of the course—programming
itself. Listing 4: The line drawing code modified for a text
The second example is a line drawing assignment console.
as it is a relevant instance of code simplification.
Listing 3 presents a shortcode that draws a line on the
graphical display. Listing 4 contains a code for the
same task but executed in a Linux terminal. In the
first case, a student uses an intuitive SetPixel
routine, which assumes as parameters coordinates of a
point to be set, while in the second example, to obtain
a similar looking output, advanced printf format-
ting techniques, such as ignoring positional argu-
ments or the formatting syntax itself, have to be
introduced.
Those changes in the code make a significant
difference for students who learn how to program since
the mathematical interpretation of the created algorithm
is more intuitive than using spaces and asterisks (Figures FIGURE 4 Hello World is shown in a console (a typical
5 and 6). operating system)
6 | PERENC ET AL.

FIGURE 5 The outcome of the code in Listing 3

FIGURE 8 A console output of a disk drawing program

(additional libraries, e.g., SDL ‐ Simple DirectMedia

Layer are required). The provided API allows students to
generate graphics quickly and without frustration. The
presence of the display device was one of the factors that
enabled developing simple graphical games as presented
in Figure 9.
The third example of the Board capabilities is a disk
drawing task. The finished codes are shown in Listing 5
and Listing 6 and the visual outputs are in Figures 7 and
8. Even if both the codes seem similar, the visual
difference is substantial. The mathematics in both the
cases is exactly the same (checking open disk equation);
FIGURE 6 The outcome of the code in Listing 4 however, in the case of the console, a student has to
know that characters are not square, hence the straight-
forward implementation results in an ellipse. Moreover,
the code in Listing 5 uses Cartesian coordinates to
address a point on the screen while classical console
needs a character‐printing approach.

#include <ISA.h>

void setup() {

int i,j,r = 30;

for(i=0;i<64;i++)

for(j=0;j<64;j++)
FIGURE 7 A disk drawn with the Listing 5 code oled_setPixel(i+32, j, sqrt(pow(ri,2)
+pow(rj,2))<r);

void loop() {}
The mentioned graphical display offers also an
opportunity to generate simple graphical projects, which Listing 5: The source code for drawing a disk on the
would not be possible with the console approach graphical display.
PERENC ET AL.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
int main(){
int i, j, r = 8;
for(i = 0; i < 20; i++){
for(j = 0; j < 20; j++)
printf("%s", sqrt(pow(10i,2)
+ pow(10j,2))<r
? "@@": " ");
printf("/n");
} The goal could be achieved without any sophisticated
return 0;
} plays are available online [41].
Listing 6: The source code for drawing a disk in a console.
6 | P R OJ E C T S D O N E B Y
STU DENTS
The Educational Board and Arduino were introduced as
a pilot class for first and second year, hence participating
students already had some basic knowledge of program-
ming. The first‐year students were finishing their first
part of the Introduction to Programming course while the
second‐year students were more advanced as they had
already finished the entire course. During the classes, the
students were given two sets of tasks. The first consisted
of tutorials with increasing difficulty to acquaint them
with every module available on the Educational Board, to
familiarize them with the board itself and to practice
basic programming instructions using the new environ-
ment. Consequently, the loops were practiced using
LEDs, for example, creating a light animation known
from Knight Rider TV series, conditional statements were
used to handle user input (buttons), for example creating
a simple calculator or time‐based operations were
introduced while generating a Morse signal from a
hardcoded text.
After completing tasks from the first set, each student
progressed to the second one, which introduced activities
closer to gamedev concepts, for example, a memory game
with eight LEDs visual pattern, an arcade game based on
the ability to keep the rhythm when pressing a button
during sound beeps and without them.
The biggest challenge of writing games using simple C
instructions and console programming is to prepare a
game loop that would work whenever there is any input
from the user. A simple while loop with scanf or getchar
| 7
calls causes the game to stop until the player makes a
move. It is not possible to move beyond blocking calls
without any user interaction. In the case of Arduino
programming, this problem does not exist. The main loop
is running infinitely while most of user input reading
functions are non‐blocking – actions such as pressing a
button or moving a joystick can be smoothly included in
a game state. So even with only basic programming
knowledge, students were able to create some simple
games on their own.
While attempting to write their games, students could
practice their programming skills and also see the results
of their work. The assignment was interesting for them
and gave them an opportunity to explore new algorithms.
tools or software libraries. Figure 9 presents screenshots
of selected projects. The video recordings of the game-
The most commonly implemented game was Snake. The
students were using various combinations of input and
display API calls to show the game board and present
player scores. Another example of a popular game was
Tetris. The students were learning to process simple shapes
and to display them in the Cartesian coordinate system. The
game of Space Invaders allowed the students to learn how
to use arrays. Among other games, there were Pacman,
Tanks, Falling Fruit and simple arcade games. There was
also one multiplayer implementation of Tanks in which two
boards communicated via Bluetooth.
7 | A R D UI NO MO B I L E V E H I C L E S
The Educational Board was also used during IAS course
(third year of studies, an elective study path). The guiding
idea of this course is to program an autonomous mobile
platform that would be able to drive ahead and navigate
through an area, avoid obstacles while sensing the
surroundings. To achieve this goal, the students have to
create software that would drive the vehicle through a
maze with the use of Fuzzy Logic and/or a PID controller
(both theories’ details were given to the students by
tutors). The used vehicles were primarily built by the
authors and the students were supposed to expand them
by adding additional equipment of their choosing and by
developing the controlling software.
In the case of IAS course, the Educational Board was
treated as a tool to facilitate an introduction to low‐level
hardware programming of sensors and actuators, so that
after completion of the course the participating students
could create more complex projects involving mobile
platforms with different physical peripherals. It was
possible because the design of both the Board and
8 | PERENC ET AL.

FIGURE 9 Examples of games

created by first and second‐year students;
starting from top left: Tetris, platform
game engine, Pacman, two‐player tank
war game

vehicles is mostly unified – they share the same hardware ultrasound sensors to obtain distance readings between
(such as Arduino module, Bluetooth module or ultra- the vehicle and obstacles.
sound sensor) and programming concepts. They were given ample freedom in vehicle altering/
While the participants had basic knowledge of general construction tasks, which resulted in a variety of mobile
software programming, they lacked an intuition at the platform concepts, as shown in Figure 10. Students have
point where computer science meets electronics and also learned the concepts of control systems and
mechanics. Hence, the developed Board functions as a regulators (both PID and fuzzy). The video presenting
prototyping platform to which students can connect the their work is also available online [42].
supplied sensors and actuators of the handed mobile
platform and then interact with them through their own
software. Students were allowed and actually encouraged
to connect external devices necessary to create a moving
vehicle.
Such an approach allowed the students to gain new
programming experience in a controlled environment of
reduced physical influence. For example, the students
learned how to programmatically control a DC motor
with a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal by analyzing
dependence between the programmed signals and the
behavior of the platform’s wheels without the ground’s
friction interference, as it would normally happen.
Moreover, the majority of students realized the need
for writing optimal code for time‐critical tasks such as FIGURE 10 The vehicles constructed during classes of
sound travel time measurement as they needed to use Intelligent Autonomous Systems
PERENC ET AL. | 9

Besides the Arduino, students could also use onboard T A B L E 2 The results of the survey conducted among the
Raspberry Pi with a video camera as a source of second‐year students (rounded to integers)
additional sensory signal of the surroundings. Hence,
Grade Q1 (%) Q2 (%) Q3 (%)
the students practiced their creativity in three areas:
1 0 2 0
software interfacing hardware equipment, real‐time
image processing, and inter‐system communication. 2 6 13 2
3 14 28 20
4 52 31 34
8 | R E S U L T S AN D D I S C U S S I O N 5 28 26 43

To verify the students’ opinion about the courses and

Arduino, a survey was conducted in each group. The
questionnaires in all three groups had similar questions
which were supposed to asses the overall perception of
Arduino supported courses. The survey was filled out by
203 students of the first year, 123 students of the second
year and 21 students of the third year of Computer
Science (IAS course). The survey form was exactly the
same for the first and second‐year students and included
the following questions:
1. How would you rate the usefulness of the acquired
knowledge during laboratories as a programmer?
2. Will the ability to program Arduino devices be useful
in implementing your own ideas?
3. Would you like to attend programming classes carried
out on the presented educational Arduino board?
In response to each question, the students could
assign a number ranging from 1 to 5. In the case of Q1
and Q2, the students rate the usefulness on the scale of 5
to 1 (5: high, 1: low) and for Q3, the willingness to
participate in similar classes (5: the high will to
participate, 1: strongly reluctant to more similar classes).
The survey results for the first and second‐year students
are presented in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.
The third‐year students were given questionnaires
with four statements and 1 to 5 rating scale, indicating
how much they agree with the presented statement
(1: strongly disagree, 2: partially disagree, 3: neutral, 4:
partially agree, 5: strongly agree). Percentage results are
presented in Table 3. The statements were as follows:
S1. The course encouraged me to obtain more
knowledge in the field of Computer Science.
S2. I would like to take part in another course
involving Arduino.
S3. I would like that other courses would also involve
additional equipment enabling me to test the practical
use of the presented material.
S4. Thanks to the possibility of experimenting with
how a program works on a physical mobile platform I
have learned more.
The results of the survey conducted among the first‐
year students are presented in Figure 11. The usefulness
of the proposed course was negatively assessed by merely
2% of students, 12% (Q2 grade 1 + grade 2) consider the
gained knowledge not to be useful for implementing their
own ideas. The negative approach to future classes with
similar activities was submitted by 5% of students, which
corresponds to 11 individuals. Of the respondents, 85%
claimed that the acquired knowledge will be helpful for
them as programmers, and 51% found it useful as a
hobby. The majority (76%) received the course well and
would like to participate in more similar activities. One
out of five students was neutral to taking part in more
classes involving Arduino programming.
The data from the second‐year students’ question-
naires are presented in Figure 12. None of them showed
strong negative opinion about the usefulness of the
proposed classes (for a programmer) and future such
courses based on the use of a microcontroller. Respec-
tively, 2% and 6% of students were rather against this and
further classes on a similar matter. About 80% of the

T A B L E 1 The results of the survey conducted among the first‐ T A B L E 3 The result of the survey conducted among the third‐
year students (rounded to integers) year students (rounded to integers)

Grade Q1 (%) Q2 (%) Q3 (%) Grade S1 (%) S2 (%) S3 (%) S4 (%)

1 0 1 0 1 0 5 0 0
2 2 11 5 2 10 10 0 0
3 11 26 18 3 19 10 19 14
4 45 33 32 4 52 38 33 38
5 40 28 44 5 19 38 48 48
10 | PERENC
FIGURE 11 Responses of first‐year students
course participants were enthusiastic towards the course
and showed a willingness to continue their work with
Arduino. This was reflected in the levels of participation
in the elective courses, 25% of them decided to continue
learning Arduino programming as part of the IAS elective
course. Both, the first and second‐year students found
acquired skills more useful for them as programmers
than as hobbyists. The responses were much more
restrained in assessing the usefulness of Arduino in their
own projects – there was a high percentage of neutral
opinions.
The charts for questionnaires from IAS course
students’ are shown in Figure 13. Only 21 questionnaires
were submitted (100% of the course participants), so each
answer has a higher impact on the score for each
question. Only 14% of the students disliked the Arduino‐
based course and found the presented knowledge useless,
76% claimed the opposite, and 71% would like to
participate in other courses involving Arduino program-
ming. Respectively, 10% and 19% of students had a
neutral attitude to the accomplished course and future
courses of similar subject. The students were very
enthusiastic towards additional educational help, none
of them negated the statement concerning the practical
use of the presented knowledge, and none of them
claimed that he/she would learn more without the
FIGURE 12 Responses of second‐year students
ET AL.
FIGURE 13 Responses of Intelligent Autonomous System
Students
mobile platform, which means that the time spent on
learning is not perceived by them as wasted. 81% of the
students would like other courses to have practical
equipment so that the learned knowledge can be applied
practically. The majority (86%) of responses indicated
that thanks to the use of mobile platforms students are of
the opinion that they have learned more.
9 | C O N C L US I O N S AN D
F U R T H E R PL A N S
The results obtained from the questionnaires indicate
that the assumed approach brought quite a positive
outcome. The students liked the classes and would like to
continue studying similar courses. The use of additional
equipment—Arduino‐based Educational Board and Mo-
bile Platforms—raised interest in the subject and
facilitated more understanding of the taught material.
The students that were able to see tangible results of their
work had greater motivation to learn. In addition, some
of the IAS course students decided to continue work
related to this subject as part of their bachelor thesis. In
addition, an interesting observation about a teacher’s
workload was made apparent during the classes: a
properly prepared activity with readable handouts and
friendly documentation allowed students to quickly
process information and search for other sources of
knowledge such as, for example, books or online pages,
almost without absorbing the teacher. Meantime, the
teacher could work with the students that had difficulty
embracing the new platform and reaching the final goal.
The positive reception of the proposed teaching aids has
encouraged the authors to introduce the educational board
into programming for all students that attend any form of
“Introduction to Programming” classes. While the idea of
increased attractiveness and added range of human‐
machine interaction will be kept without major changes,
we analyze the possibility of improving both hardware and
PERENC ET AL.
software by introducing a couple of replacements. The
audio output will be replaced with a tone generator. The
current audio generator based on a digital‐to‐analog
converter was not used by students at all due to a large
amount of memory needed to fit acceptable samples along
with interrupt‐driven code required to output those samples
in the background. The students have also complained
about the limited functionalities of the graphical graphical
display so we would like to replace it with an RGB 320×240
touchable one. The used Bluetooth module proved to be
very problematic when more than 4 to 5 of them were
running simultaneously. And as this technology is less and
less frequently used, we would like to replace it with full
TCP/UDP WI‐FI connectivity which could contribute to the
students’ designs becoming more interactive. We are also
considering using a different CPU module. The Arduino
Due that we currently use has numerous powerful
competitors (e.g., Teensy 3.6). However, in this case, we
need to be sure that we maintain the learning curve still
acceptable and fun for first‐year students that have never
written any code before.
ACKNOWLEDGMEN T
This study was financed by the Lodz University of
Technology, Faculty of Electrical, Electronic, Computer
and Control Engineering as a part of statutory activity
(project no. 501/12‐24‐1‐5418).
ORCID
Izabela Perenc http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8761-4472
Tomasz Jaworski http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8600-3760
Piotr Duch http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0656-1215
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How to cite this article: Perenc I, Jaworski T,
Duch P. Teaching programming using dedicated
Arduino Educational Board. Comput Appl Eng
Educ. 2019;1–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/cae.22134