Abstract:

In this contribution, we present an intensive Project-Based Learning (PBL) course developed at the Telecommunication Engineering School of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM). The course has been repeated five times in the last years and consists in using PBL to introduce university students to multimedia programming and microcontroller-based electronics, being focused on the open source hardware and software platforms Arduino and Processing.

The short course is developed in the framework of the ATHENS programme, a European program of exchanges between students of 15 European technological universities. The main activity of the program consists in organizing one-week specialized short courses together with cultural activities that allows students to know a different university and country and serves as first step for a future Erasmus experience. The courses have a heterogeneous group of attendants formed by students of different nationalities and backgrounds. In our case, these groups were formed by students from computer science, electrical engineering and information technology, robotics, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, offshore engineering, geomatics and business administration, among others. Some students have programming experience while others not.

The course duration is 5 days with a dedication of 7 hours daily. The first day is devoted to learning Arduino programming, while the second day, students learn multimedia programming using Processing. In both days, a theoretical/practical introduction to the subject is followed by problem-based teaching where students solve formulated problems based on what they have learned previously. The last 3 days, is centered on PBL.

The project is developed in pairs supervised by the professors. We offer several basic projects such as creating a weather station, a robot, a sonar, a pulse-oximeter or a temperature control. The students choose one of these basic projects or even they mix several of them or invent their own. We have noticed that the student dedication and motivation is higher if they choose a project on their own, especially in the later editions of the course. By the end of the course, each group performs a demonstration of their project in front of their peers.

The evaluation is performed in several ways. On one hand, we use gamification tools as interactive questionnaires after the introductory parts. On the other hand, a report is delivered that describes the project as well as its development. In addition, the best and most original projects are uploaded to a public repository on the web. We use also surveys in order to get some feedback from the students.

In conclusion, the intensive PBL has been a big success. The combination of cultural activities with a motivating and challenging course with freedom to choose the way the students develop its own learning experience has proven a very enriching experience.

Keywords:

Problem-based learning, Project-based learning, Gamification, Athens programme, Student exchanges, Open source platform, Arduino, Processing.