Student Designed CANBus Simulator Used as Teaching Aid in Autotronics Course

The aim of this paper is to develop a low cost open source Controller Area Network system that simulates electronic controls in modern automotive vehicles and to evaluate its effectiveness as a teaching aid. The Arduino UNO microcontroller board was chosen as the desired hardware platform and the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) using the Arduino compiler was chosen as the software development environment. Both the Arduino Uno and Arduino IDE/compiler are open source and freely available to students and staff with no proprietary intellectual property costs. The Arduino UNO was interfaced with the Arduino Controller Area Network Bus (CANBus) shield which is also open hardware. Unitec Institute of Technology practices a holistic approach to teaching. As part of its holistic approach to teaching, senior students are encouraged to develop technical artefacts that can be used as teaching aids for junior students, the junior students are introduced to the artefact as part of their course and the artefact is used to encourage junior students to increase their technical proficiency so that when they reach a senior technical level they can develop artefacts too. The holistic approach is considered to be self-sustaining and provides positive role modelling for junior students. The project described in this paper was developed by a senior student and has been used as a teaching aid for junior students congruent with the holistic teaching philosophy practiced at Unitec. The code and circuitry was designed by an exchange Masters student and was used in the papers, APTE 7504 Vehicle Electronic Diagnostics and APTE 6505 Automotive Electronics, to help students understand CANBus operation and design features in an Automotive CANBus application.