Session T2G
Work in Progress - The Integration of Hardware Area Courses in the Computer Engineering Program at UnicenP Edson Pedro Ferlin1, Marcelo Mikosz Gonçalves2, Valfredo Pilla Júnior3 Computer Engineering Department, Centro Universitário Positivo – UnicenP, Rua Prof. Pedro Viriato Parigot de Souza, 5300, Curitiba, PR, Brazil, 81280-330 Abstract – The Computer Engineering Program at UnicenP (Centro Universitário Positivo) has an annual serial structure. This paper presents the integration effort of the courses in the hardware area. The focus of this work is the following set of courses: the Computer Engineering Project course of the freshman year, Digital Systems course and Computer Architecture & Organization course, both of the sophomore year and Microprocessors course, of the junior year. This integration effort has as main objective the improvement of the multidisciplinary formation with basis in a continuous integration between theory and practice in engineering. We present the contents developments, the experimental activities and the courses final projects. The interdisciplinary relationships are described as well its contribution for a multidisciplinary formation, pointing out the influence on the increase of the learning level, a consequence of the reinforcement and the integration between theory and practice. Index Terms - Computer Engineering, Learning Process, Methodology, Multidisciplinarity. INTRODUCTION The Computer Engineering Program at UnicenP [1] has an annual serial structure. The program is developed in four years (morning) and five years (nocturnal). The school year is divided in four periods of one bimester, totalizing 200 days of classes. In each bimester the student receives an evaluation score, from 0 to 10, and at the end of year the scores of arithmetic mean must be superior to 7.0 with a minimum frequency of 75% for course approval; if the student does not obtain the average but has a performance between 4.0 and 6.9 he / she can make a last evaluation. For the student be successful in this evaluation he / she must have a new average, calculated for the arithmetic mean between the last evaluation and the original average, and this average must be equal or superior to 5.0 for approbation. The curricular structure congregates the courses of the program in two great areas of Professional Formation
(hardware and software areas) [2], courses in Basic Formation area (Calculus, Physics, and others), curses of Human Formation area (Humanities), Management Formation (Enterprise Management and Management of Projects) and Specialty Formation. Since its creation, the course keeps the same structure and in a continuous process looking forward to improve the quality of education. The main characteristic of the Computer Engineering Program is the integration of the courses techniques, mainly the courses of the hardware area. Besides integrating the contents we verify a bigger integration and professor engage. The interdisciplinarity is growing year after year. The integration process arises to minimize the amount of independents course projects and integrate them into bigger projects involving two or more courses. Due to the satisfactory results, it was established the interdisciplinarity of the courses of the same year and, moreover, the process was extended in vertical way to fortify the structure of the course as a whole. In this paper shows the evolution process of integration of the courses in the area of the hardware as well as its projections for the future. EVOLUTION PROCESS OF THE INTEGRATION Without changing the structure, the Computer Engineering Program is being optimized along the time in an incremental and continuous way, powered by the interdisciplinarity. The search for the integration of the courses is due to of the necessity to provide a continuous process concerned with the student apprenticing. This continuous is being emphasized throughout one same year of learning and in a recurrent form to the long one of the school year. This interaction process was not only proposed to be one important characteristic of the computer engineering program, but as an instrument that instigates the student curiosity and motivation for the study, courses activities, and the use of an diversity of knowledge in an integrated and concise way. Still, it must function as continuous reinforcement of concepts through activities that conducts the theory to the practice. This is the context in which the searches for the integration of our courses had acted. In this work we detach
1
Edson Pedro Ferlin, Chair, Computer Engineering Department, Centro Universitário Positivo – UnicenP,
[email protected] Marcelo Mikosz Gonçalves, Professor, Computer Engineering Department, Centro Universitário Positivo – UnicenP,
[email protected] 3 Valfredo Pilla Junior, Professor, Computer Engineering Department, Centro Universitário Positivo – UnicenP,
[email protected] 2
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Session T2G the integrating effort in Digital Systems, Computer Architecture & Organization of and Microprocessors courses. The mentioned courses structuralize the nucleus of the hardware area that it is one of the sustentation bases of the Computer Engineering Program. This set of courses also development common and complementary subjects many times. For this reason, the integration is strategic for the development of the courses in the Computer Engineering Program [1]. The growth of the integration in the reinforcement of contents comes being consolidated by means of hardware development kits. These kits help the students to keep contact with the technologies, methodologies of projects and applications. Most are digital circuit’s kits composed by components and PCB that students will assembly and use as a module to build more complex projects. Initially the interdisciplinarity was developed with intention to consolidate the knowledge of two or more courses of the same year. In this way, in the beginning of the school year, the professors in the week of planning search in the courses of the same year, common aspects to establish integrated projects. The integrated projects have as main objective: • To consolidate the concepts of diverse courses; • Integrate the knowledge in projects applied to daily problems; • Develop the capacity of the student to integrate and to apply the diverse knowledge assimilated along the years. Due to the great success of the horizontal interdisciplinarity, currently we are establishing projects that are developed in an incremental form transposing the year to be incremented in the next years. In freshman year, we have one course called of Computer Engineering Project that has as main characteristics: • Explain about Computer Engineering; • Apply scientific methodology; • Develop a simple project as motivational factor. In this course are presented procedures for technical document creation such reports, papers and thesis, which are intensely used in this course and along the program. In the inter years integration, some complex knowledge are transported to previous year in a simpler and basic form as a preview for the student. Thus it is possible to bring knowledge and applications in the first year courses where the student can try and have a concrete vision of what is for coming. In the Mathematical Logic course are implemented simple logical circuits that demonstrate the theory and they will be gone deep in digital area. Thus the professor of logic through a practical experiment implements functions logical through discrete logic gates with circuits TTL of small integration, carrying the student of mathematical equations logical composed for proposals and values logical (true or false) to a digital circuit at that moment, preventing to delay the concretion with the affirmations: “In the Digital Systems course you will see how it work in a circuit".
Thus, the basic knowledge is brought to earlier courses in basic form opening the door for more complex subjects in the future that will became more natural the learning process for the students. The Figure 1 shows the hardware courses along the four years program. In this section the courses of the freshman year were described. The courses in the freshman year are the base of knowledge. The next sections will describe the courses that form the nucleus of the program. They are distributed from the sophomore year up to senior year. These descriptions are focused on the interdisciplinarity and development of integrated projects. Freshman year
Sophomore year
Junior year
Digital Systems
Microprocessors
Senior year
Mathematical Logic
Eletronics
Computer Engineering Project
Computer Architecture & Organization
Gaduation Thesis Compilers
Figure 1 - Computer Engineering Courses At the sophomore year the Digital Systems and Computer Architecture & Organization courses were planned to be concomitant. In the beginning of year this two courses are planned topic by to topic to break their dependency so the Digital System course don’t need to be a prerequisite. This effort makes the integration stronger and avoids redundancy. THE DIGITAL SYSTEMS COURSE This course together with the Computer Architecture & Organization course has an important role in the formation of the student. These two courses are in the sophomore year as shown in Figure 1. The Digital Systems course contemplates a revision of devices semiconductors applied to the keying circuits and technology of integrated circuits digital, revision of boolean algebra (developed in freshman year in Mathematical Logic course), simplification of functions and cost, project of combinational and sequential circuits logical, applying devices of low and average integration TTL and CMOS and devices of high integration as CPLDs (Complex Programmable Logic Devices) and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) using HDL (Hardware Description Language). And also other devices and memory integrated circuits. In the first semester it the digital systems course develops the contents of technology of digital circuits, the use of instruments of measure (already seen in Electronics course) for analysis of characteristics of integrated circuits. The practical activities of this period make use of all theoretical
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Session T2G
THE COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE & ORGANIZATION COURSE The Computer Architecture & Organization course approaches the architecture and the organization of computers, microprogramming and micro-architectures, conventional language of the machine, advanced iteration of the machine with the operational system and architectures internal and the most important thing, show the relation and interface of Software and Hardware, in this paper we only cite the software course. In the first semester, Architecture and Organization of Computers course develops (among others subjects) the theory of the representation of amounts and the arithmetical operations (entire, point-fixture and floatingpoint) in the digital systems and still a revision of digital logic (it Mathematical Logic course, of the freshman year, it dealt with this subject extensively) and presents architectures of Arithmetic and Logic Units (ALUs). After that it deals with basic questions of computers, studying specific architectures and basic complex units for magnifying of performance, as caches, pipelines, etc. In both semester the Computer Architecture & Organization develops practical projects of interfaces to the microcomputer, making use of the devices applied in the previously in the Digital Systems course. Still, it develops programs (also of access the devices of interface and peripherals) in language assembly for these microcomputers, while it studies the iteration with the hardware-operating system. EXAMPLE OF INTEGRATED PROJECT At the end of sophomore year a project of microcomputer based on processor CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) whose architecture is show in Figure 2 deeply was analyzed in the Computer Architecture & Organization course. This is the principal integrated project for these two courses.
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knowledge from both courses focusing multiplexers, demultiplexes, decoders, coders, transcoders and tri-state buffers. A small unit of logic and arithmetic is one of the projects of this course in the form of a calculator that process reverse polish algebra, always using knowledge of Computer Architecture & Organization course. This development already counts on the environment support of simulation based on tool of development of programmable logic; however the project must integrally be developed with devices of small and medium integration scale. The second semester this course deals with to devices and sequential logical circuits and project of systems through HDL and correspondent implementation using CPLDs or FPGAs, the example of integrated project is shown ahead.
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Figure 2 – CISC integrated project architecture The Computer Architecture & Organization course develops a CISC architecture processor for set of instruction shown in Table 1. The processor is developed simultaneously in both courses by the same teams. It is developed in HDL for CPLDs or FPGAs. Table 1 – Instruction set implemented in the integrated project Instruction Set LOAD_D STORE_D < direct 8bits > MOV B, A MOV A, B ADD_D < direct 8bits > SUB_D < direct 8bits > AND A , B OR A , B XOR A , B JP_Zero < direct 8bits > JP_N_Zero < direct 8bits > JP_MAIOR < direct 8bits > JP_MENOR < direct 8bits > JUMP < direct 8bits > THE MICROPROCESSOR COURSE
This course is placed at the junior year, so the student as already taken many courses and at this point he/she is able to integrate all the previous knowledge into more complexes projects. To accelerate the education process the student makes use of the same tools of development used in the integrated project described previously to develop the RISC processor [6]. This activity occurs in the first semester. Architectures RISC and CISC developed in these you also discipline in briefing will serve as platform of the hardware for Compilers course, which will develop assemblers and compilers for these architectures as projects. The Compilers course also uses the knowledge acquired previously in the Algorithms & Computer Programming course, Computer Fundamentals & Programming course and Software Engineering course. The compiler as well the other software courses not mention in this paper helps to understand how the hardware works and interact with software.
0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE October 19 – 22, 2005, Indianapolis, IN 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T2G-23
Session T2G INTERDISCIPLINARITY FEEDBACK Besides of the traditional mechanisms, the Computer Engineering Program had the Engineering Games [5] and AVIN [3]. The Engineering games are destined to the students of the freshman year and sophomore year and the AVIN is for the students of the junior year and the senior year. In the games, the students are divided in teams formed with pupils of the diverse courses of engineering offered by the UnicenP. For the groups many tasks are passed at the beginning of the day and at the beginning of the afternoon. All tasks involve the knowledge acquired from basic engineering courses. The tasks are in a challenging form, giving to the student the chance to apply the practical and theoretical knowledge. The performance of the team is reverted in an additional grade that corresponds from 0 up to 15% in grade of last the semester, according to the task results. As an example, the Figure 3 shows a description of the task called Hydroelectric Plant that uses a DC motor, the goal of this task is to produce more energy and measure it. Task – Hydroelectric Plant The team must to build a small hydroelectric plant in the slope, if front of the beige block. The water used for electrical energy generation must be unloaded in the pluvial water collector in the slope base. Task Report The report must be write based on the ABNT standard, and must to contain .Tank emptying forecasting, with calculus annotations; · Forecasting of the electric motor power supplied by the water; ·Occurred difficulties; · Suggestions for improvement of the small plant functioning; · Conclusions. Each team must to submit its small plant to test until 11h30min. The test will to evaluate the tank emptying time and the electric power produced by the motor. The team must to stamp its number in the tank. Supplements · Flexible hose · 2 bucket (20 liters); · Fast drying epoxy; · Fast glue; ·Empty soda thin can; · Cork; · PET bottle (2 liters); ·Electric motor.
Figure 3 - Hydroelectric Plant task
Figure 4 - Hydroelectric Plant implementation The AVIN is a formal test used to verify the knowledge acquired to the long one of the Program. The questions of this evaluation contain subjects of several courses. The result of AVIN gives the feedback to analyze the interdisciplinarity and integration of the courses. After the AVIN, a report is generated with graphics for each question, where it is possible to verify the capacity of resolution of problems and the level of absorption of knowledge to the long the course. A typical AVIN question is show in Figure 5. A circuit for driving a 120 VAC lamp was designed as in the figure below. The lamp is controlled by software, using the PC parallel port (D0 – D5 outputs). Are requested: (a) Determine the logic equation of the lamp L1 control. (4,0 points) (b) Design the maximum and minimum resistor value, such that L1 be ON when the command is sent via parallel port. The devices features must not be damaged. (6,0 points) Transistor 2N2222A Relay features: Logic gates features: features: Voperation = 12 V VO = 5 V VBE saturation = 0,7V IO max = 4 mA Resistence = 240 Ω VCE saturation = 0,2V Vb saturation = 100 mV ICmax = 500 mA VCE max = 50 V
To implement the task the students must use only the items listed in the task description. The Figure 4 shows the implementation of the Hydroelectric Plant task.
Figure 5 - AVIN example question Another mechanism for verification of the evolution of the student is supervised curricular job experience [7]. During 0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE October 19 – 22, 2005, Indianapolis, IN 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T2G-24
Session T2G this time the student is followed by the supervisor in the company and of the professor of the UnicenP. This experience proceeds by a proposal sign by the student, the company supervisor and the professor and at the end a full report is delivered with the approval of every body. In this way, this enterprise-university interaction serves as feedback and a mechanism for fine adjustment of the courses to keep them lined up with the necessity of the enterprises needs. The UnicenP also supplies a development infrastructure for scientific initiation project [8], which is developed in the laboratories of the UnicenP with the accompaniment of one or more professors. The PICs generally is presented in students congresses, where the student also has the chance to value academic directed toward research. Finally, the Graduation Thesis [9] that is the biggest challenge for the student. In it the student has the chance to use all the knowledge acquired to the long one of the course. The project has the duration of one year. The student develops a project consisting of the hardware and software. During the senior year, it develops all the project phases since the specification until the implementation and tests and validation. The final project is obligator for the conclusion of the course. The project, Figure 6, is a parallel architecture compose by two 8051 microcontroller that can operate in two distinguish mode. The shared memory mode and common memory mode to solve a problem using parallel processing like FFT.
Figure 7 - The pendulum based on computer Another good example is the 8051 Microcontroller board show in Figure 8 that it is used in Microprocessor course. Thus, the students purchase the board and the components to carry through the practical activities of the related course.
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Figure 6 – Example of Graduation Thesis FUTURE PROJECTS With the proposal of constant renewal and innovation the students and the professors of Computer Engineering Program are developing some projects of electronic instrumentation with application in physics, in this way such projects can be used in experiments or as demonstration of theory concepts. Amongst them we can detach pendulum that comprises the knowledge of several courses. The pendulum is showed in Figure 7.
Figure 8 - 8051 Microcontroller board CONCLUSIONS As presented in this paper, we are developing since 1999 (program beginning year) multidisciplinary activities and, year after year, we are innovating and improving others ways to
0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE October 19 – 22, 2005, Indianapolis, IN 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T2G-25
Session T2G provide an open view of the program and of the profession to the student, using these classroom and extra-classroom multidisciplinary activities. The prominence point of the process is the integration several courses of the hardware area. The students start to perceive that, the courses are not independent and multidisciplinarity is very important to develop integrated projects, an every separate course has a special meaning in the formation computer engineering. However, this type of integration is possible in virtue of the group of engaged professors that every day became more synchronized with the main objective of the program that is to form a computer engineer, on the basis of the lines of direction of the Pedagogic and Didactical Project of the Computer Engineering Program at UnicenP. REFERENCES [1]
E. P. Ferlin, “The Computer Engineering Project Course”. In: ICEE 2001 – International Conference On Engineering Education, Oslo – Norway, vol. 6B5, pp. 17-19, 2001.
[2]
M. Dziedzic, M. J. Tozzi, E. P. Ferlin, M. Rodacoski, and J. C. Nitsch, “Multidisciplinary Engineering Programs at UnicenP”, In: FIE 2000 30RD ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Kansas City, USA, pp. 13-16, 2000.
[3]
E. P. Ferlin, and M. J. Tozzi, “First Integrated Examination of the Computer Engineering Program”, In: FIE 2002 - 32RD ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Boston, USA, 2002.
[4]
E. P. Ferlin, “The Project of a Didactic CPU for Multidisciplinary”, In: ICEE 1999 – International Conference on Engineering Education, 1999, Praga and Ostrava. 1999.
[5]
E. P. Ferlin, M. J. Tozzi, M. Dziedzic, J. C. Nitsch, and M. Rodacoski, “Primeira Gincana de Engenharia do UnicenP”, In: COBENGE 2000 XXVIII Congresso Brasileiro de Ensino de Engenharia, Ouro Preto – MG, Brasil, 2000.
[6]
E.P. Ferlin, V. Pilla Jr. “Microprocessors: From Theory to Practice, a Didactic Experience”. In: FIE 2004 - 34RD ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. Savanaah, USA, 2004.
[7]
E. P. Ferlin, R. Selow, “The Curriculum Apprenticeship in Computer Engineering At UnicenP”,In: NHIE 2003 - 3rd International Conference New Horizons in Industry and Education, 2003, Santorini Island Greece, 2003.
[8]
E. Cichaczewski, E.T. Przysiezny, E. P. Ferlin, V. Pilla Jr., “Microprocessador RISC Implementado em Lógica Programável.” In: Anais do VIII PIBIC - Seminário de Iniciação Científica e Tecnológica CEFET-Pr/CNPq. Curitiba, Brasil, 13-15 de Agosto, p.9-12, 2003.
[9]
E. P. Ferlin, V. Pilla Jr., and J. C. da Cunha, “The Graduation Thesis in the Computer Engineering Program at UnicenP”, In: FIE 2003 - 33RD ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Boulder – CO, USA, 2003.
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