Raspberry Pi creativity: A student-driven approach to teaching software design patterns

One of the primary goals of computer science education is preparing students to apply what they learn in the classroom to any problem they may encounter in the future. Due to the rapidly changing landscape of technology, regardless of the comprehensiveness of their coursework, at some point students will be required to apply their knowledge to a context they have not encountered before, and understand how what they have learned applies. One of the content areas where this is particularly relevant is helping students recognize the variety of technologies and applications in which object oriented design patterns can produce significant practical benefits. To foster this aptitude, we sought to leverage the students' own creativity with a Raspberry Pi and a multitude of sensors, displays, cameras, and actuators to boost exploration of technologies and student understanding of how course concepts apply outside of constructed examples. This paper presents the experience of using student creativity with the Raspberry Pi to drive their learning in an upper level software design patterns course.