Digital Circuit Simulator Project at Undergraduate Level

This paper discusses various aspects of student learning based on a project to develop a primitive digital electronic circuit simulator at the undergraduate level within the Computer Engineering program at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, PA. Beyond software programming, the project exposes students to a language compilation step, circuit data base schemes, and simulation techniques in their final semester. Students are to understand a simple text based grammar used to describe the logic circuit, how it is compiled and stored in memory, and the simulation kernel itself before completing the project. The paper also includes a discussion of survey results from students about their experience.