A structure diagram design tool for teaching embedded systems software design
John Collins, Mark Beckerleg · 4th ASEE/AaeE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education · 2005
In this paper we describe an educational software tool designed and developed to help students create design structure diagrams and structured C code for embedded systems applications using a microcontroller. The software allows the easy creation of structure diagrams using standard symbols (sequence, selection and iteration), line drawing and text editing. Multi-page diagrams may be drawn, the pages being linked by interpage connectors or function calls. When the structure diagram is complete, an outline of the corresponding C code can be automatically generated. The generated C code includes comments relating to each symbol in the structure diagram, partly coded selection, iteration and function definition statements, and automatic creation of blocks of code corresponding to the structure diagram. The student then edits the C code by completing the partly coded statements, adding sequence statements and other details such as include, define, variable definition and function prototype statements. If the program structure needs to be changed during debugging, the structure diagram can be modified and new C code generated. This new code can be merged with the previous C code version, so that any code changes already made by the student are not lost. The application of this design tool in a taught paper is discussed, and student feedback is presented. It is shown that this design tool has resulted in much improved student focus on software design before coding.