Towards education alternatives to teaching and learning of programming: A course experience using open hardware tools

This full paper proposes an educational methodology to teaching and learning of programming using both open hardware tools and industrial components such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, three phase motors and variable speed drives. The methodology aims to improve the algorithmic thinking in the students due to the deficiencies detected in it, as well as, it searches that the students learn a second programming language, using hands-on designs and activities that require the components mentioned. In addition, the methodology has been employed into the curriculum of a course of programming known as (open hardware) for students of technology in electronics (n = 22), observing that the students learn programming concepts in a better way and their motivation and engagement towards the software area was increased during the course. To technical level, the methodology uses the programming language Python in order to interact with the different ports, peripherals and utilities of the platforms mentioned, creating a link between these elements and the aspects concerning the software design, e.g., data types, classes, methods or Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). Finally, the methodology takes into account two important aspects, firstly, the skills developed by the students in the proposal are involved into the BoK (Body of Knowledge) of different engineering areas as embedded systems, control and computer science and, secondly, programming is perhaps one of the most difficult areas in engineering but in turn, it has a ubiquitous nature in the areas mentioned.