Embedded Systems Education Via Dissection
J.W. Bruce, Lee Hathcock · 2020
For years, biology and zoology education has required the dissection of small animals to aid in the understanding of physiology and anatomy.Dissection provides the student with the ability to peer inside the inner workings of biological bodies to see how the pieces fit to together in a very physical way.But, in the end, the biologist only "analyzes" physiology, and only rarely gets to "synthesize" a similar design.Engineers, on the other hand, spend most of their careers designing devices and systems.It seems only logical that engineers would benefit as much, or more, than biologists from dissection exercises.This paper describes the experiences of the author with dissection of consumer electronics in an offering of a semester-long embedded systems class for seniors and introductory graduate students.Example dissections will be presented and discussed.The paper will detail how the dissections furthered the class toward its educational objectives.Finally, qualitative comments from students will be provided, along with observations from the instructor.