EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES BASED ON LOW-COST PLATFORMS IN THE AREA OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING

The aim of this work is the description of several low-cost teaching materials intended for improving the motivation of the Computer Engineering student body. Nowadays, there is a great diversity of low-cost computing platforms that can be used as resources in the studies of Computer Engineering. Raspberry Pi and some models of Arduino, both based on ARM processors, are representative examples of this kind of platforms that, thanks to its low-cost, could be studied and used by pupils in the subjects of Computer Science to make teaching resources. Such teaching resources have been used in outreach activities to increase the interest of future university graduates in subjects in the Engineering field.

Aims of the research:
To bring low-cost platforms over to pupils has two general purposes:
(1) To gain the attention of new registered students in the studies of Computer Engineering; and
(2) To improve the motivation of students of Computer Engineering.

To obtain these general aims we consider the following specific goals:
(a) To develop the required resources to make an activity catalogue that serves as a resource for the recruitment of new registered students in the studies of Computer Engineering. The characteristics of these activities will be adapted to the wide variety of events in which the recruitment of new students is possible (Science Week, Annual Researchers' Night, Visit your University program, etc); and
(b) To develop the teaching materials adapted for its integration in the subjects of the Degree and Master of Computer Engineering of the following subjects: Computers Architecture, Multimedia Technologies, Multiprocessors, Advanced Computation and ubiquitous computing resources.

Methodologies and techniques:
Several teaching resources based on Raspberry Pi and Arduino have been carried out by means of the methodology of working group. At every subject, several workgroups have been organized by groups of three or four people. After that, each group was given a case study in which they had to identify the characteristics of a certain low-cost platform. Moreover, they had to develop a specific project related to the above mentioned platform. To ensure the success of these activities, regular follow-ups of the student body, both to plan and to monitor the development of the activities, were carried out by teachers.