More Like this

1. Scaffolding the Debugging Process in Physical Computing with Circuit Check

   Schneider, Michael (January 2022, 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL))

   Physical computing projects provide rich opportunities for students to design, construct, and program machines that can sense and interact with the environment. However, students engaging in these activities often struggle to decipher the behavior of hardware components, software, and the interaction between the two. I report on the experiences of middle school students using a software tool, Circuit Check, designed to scaffold the debugging process in physical computing systems. Through think-aloud problem-solving exercises, I found Circuit Check facilitated rich instructor-student discussions. Incorporating these preliminary observations, I discuss design considerations for physical computing tools that support productive struggles and student sense-making 

   more » « less
2. Scaffolding the Debugging Process in Physical Computing with Circuit Check

   Schneider, Michael (January 2022, 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL))

   Physical computing projects provide rich opportunities for students to design, construct, and program machines that can sense and interact with the environment. However, students engaging in these activities often struggle to decipher the behavior of hardware components, software, and the interaction between the two. I report on the experiences of middle school students using a software tool, Circuit Check, designed to scaffold the debugging process in physical computing systems. Through think-aloud problem-solving exercises, I found Circuit Check facilitated rich instructor-student discussions. Incorporating these preliminary observations, I discuss design considerations for physical computing tools that support productive struggles and student sense-making 

   more » « less
3. Pair debugging of electronic textiles projects: Analyzing think-aloud protocols for high school students’ strategies and practices while problem solving.

   Jayathirtha, G.; Fields, D. A.; Kafai, Y. B. (January 2020, The Interdisciplinarity of the Learning Sciences, 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2020)

   Gresalfi, M.; Horn, I. (Ed.)

   Much attention has focused on student learning while making physical computational artifacts such as robots or electronic textiles, but little is known about how students engage with the hardware and software debugging issues that often arise. In order to better understand students’ debugging strategies and practices, we conducted and video-recorded eight think- aloud sessions (~45 minutes each) of high school student pairs debugging electronic textiles projects with researcher-designed programming and circuitry/crafting bugs. We analyzed each video to understand pairs’ debugging strategies and practices in navigating the multi- representational problem space. Our findings reveal the importance of employing system-level strategies while debugging physical computing systems, and of coordinating between various components of physical computing systems, for instance between the physical artifact, representations on paper, and the onscreen programming environment. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research and designing instruction and tools for learning with and debugging physical computing systems. 

   more » « less
4. A Software Debugger for E-textiles and Arduino Microcontrollers

   Schneider, M.; Hill, C.; Eisenberg, A.; Gross, M.; Blum, A. (October 2020, FabLearn 2020 - 9th Annual Conference on Maker Education (FabLearn ’20))

   Today’s STEM classrooms have expanded the domain of computer science education from a basic two-toned terminal screen to now include helpful Integrated Development Environments(IDE) (BlueJ, Eclipse), block-based programming (MIT Scratch, Greenfoot), and even physical computing with embedded systems (Arduino, LEGO Mindstorm). But no matter which environment a student starts programming in, all students will eventually need help in finding and fixing bugs in their code. While the helpful IDE’s have debugger tools built in (breakpoints for pausing your program, ways to view/modify variable values, and "stepping" through code execution), in many of the other programming environments, students are limited to using print statements to try and "see" what is happening inside their program. Most students who learn to write code for Arduino microcontrollers will start within the Arduino IDE, but the official Arduino IDE does not currently provide any debugging tools. Instead, a student would have to move on to a professional IDE such as Atmel Studio or acquire a hardware debugger in order to add breakpoints or view their program’s variables. But each of these options has a steep learning curve, additional costs, and can require complex configurations. Based on research of student debugging practices[3, 7] and our own classroom observations, we have developed an Arduino software library, called Arduino Debugger, which provides some of these debugging tools (ex. breakpoints) while staying within the official Arduino IDE. This work continues a previous library, (redacted), which focused on features specific to e-textiles development boards. The Arduino Debugger library has been modified to support not only e-textile boards (Lilypad, Adafruit Circuit Playground) but most AVR and ARM based Arduino boards.We are also in the process of testing a set of Debugging Code Templates to see how they might increase student adoption of debugging tools. 

   more » « less
5. A Wearable Meter That Actively Monitors the Continuity of E-Textile Circuits as They Are Sewn

   Hill, C.; Schneider, M.; Eisenberg, A.; Gross, M.; Blum, A. (October 2020, FabLearn 2020 - 9th Annual Conference on Maker Education (FabLearn ’20))

   The e-textile landscape has enabled creators to combine textile materiality with electronic capability. However, the tools that e-textile creators use have been adapted from traditional textile or hardware tools. This puts creators at a disadvantage, as e-textile projects present new and unique challenges that currently can only be addressed using a non-specialized toolset. This paper introduces the first iteration of a wearable e-textile debugging tool to assist novice engineers in problem solving e-textile circuitry errors. These errors are often only detected after the project is fully built and are resolved only by disassembling the circuit. Our tool actively monitors the continuity of the conductive thread as the user stitches, which enables the user to identify and correct circuitry errors as they create their project. 

   more » « less