Applying Interdisciplinarity and Agile Methods in the Development of a Smart Grids System

This paper describes an experiment of integrating undergraduate and graduate courses at the Brazilian Aeronautics Institute of Technology, within the Computer Engineering Undergraduate Program and the Electronic and Computing Engineering Graduate Program, during the 2nd semester of 2011. A Smart Grids System case study was used as a Problem Based Learning strategy together with agile best practices within a project development. This experiment has involved four courses: Embedded Systems (undergraduate), Embedded and Real-Time Systems, Software Quality, Reliability, and Safety, and Advanced Topics in Software Testing. During this experiment, the students of all these courses had to interact and collaborate in order to produce a prototype of a Smart Grids System, simulating a real project development.