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Popular platforms for teaching physical computing like the LilyPad Arduino and Adafruit Circuit Playground have simplified programming and wiring, enabling students to quickly engineer physical computing projects. But enabling students to rapidly design and build is a double-edged sword: Students can create functioning prototypes without fully understanding the underlying principles. With limited knowledge and experience, students struggle to locate and fix bugs, or errors, in their projects. Absent appropriate debugging tools, students rely on their instructor for locating errors, or worse, turn toward destructive tactics such as tearing apart and rebuilding their project, hoping the bug fixes itself. Students need tools targeted to their ability that scaffold debugging and help them locate bugs in the mixed hardware/software environment of physical computing. I developed Circuit Check to scaffold the debugging process for students. It enables students to observe real-time sensor data and test hardware components through a novel adaptation of the traditional breakpoint for physical computing.
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This content will become publicly available on May 25, 2026
“It Must be the Resistor!” A Pilot Study Unveiling Student Debugging Misconceptions and Biases
Debugging incurs significant costs in the semiconductor industry, with some engineers spending 40% or more of their time debugging. Despite the critical importance of this skill, undergraduate students often need help to develop it. In this paper, we administered a circuit debugging test to second and third-year electrical and computer engineering (ECE) students in an introductory microelectronics class. The buggy circuit was a non-inverting amplifier printed circuit board with a misoriented op-amp. The pilot results on 26 students revealed concerns about misconceptions and biases in their debugging methodology. 54% of students focused predominantly on scrutinizing resistors, neglecting a broader exploration of potential issues. Furthermore, 46% limited their search for errors to a single potential problem, and 15% could not accurately measure resistance. Ultimately, 31% successfully identified and corrected the bug, indicating exam expectations were achievable and giving us hope that debugging skills are within reach for our students. However, specialized training may be needed to get them there.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2321255
- PAR ID:
- 10626188
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems proceedings
- ISSN:
- 2158-1525
- ISBN:
- 979-8-3503-5683-0
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 5
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- microelectronics, debugging, troubleshooting, undergraduate, semiconductor workforce development
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- London, United Kingdom
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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