Ada, Model Railroading, and Software Engineering Education John W. McCormick University of Northern Iowa

Ada, Model Ada, Model Railroading, and Railroading, and

Software Engineering Software Engineering EducationEducation

John W. McCormick

University of Northern Iowa

Ada, Model Railroading, and Software Engineering Education

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Computer Controlled Systems Study Option

• For students interested in the specification, design, and implementation of real-time embedded software.

• Core courses from the ACM curriculum.

• Additional courses in– Continuous mathematics– Physics– Electronics


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CSC 416Real-Time Systems

• A capstone course.

• To perform well students must integrate knowledge from:– Computer Science– Physics / Electronics– English– Mathematics


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CSC 416Real-Time Systems

• Students are exposed to fundamental scientific issues in real-time computing and practical skills of software development.

• Goal is to train software engineers capable of working as part of a development team.

• Many topics covered at a survey level.


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The Laboratory

A major problem with teaching real-time embedded software engineering is finding suitable equipment for assignments and projects.


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The Laboratory

• Simulators– Do not provide many of the

frustrating problems associated with actual physical systems

– Lack of experience with real systems is one reason cited by those who would exclude computer science graduates from development teams.


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The Laboratory

• The problem now becomes finding a physical system for students to control

• In 1984 I began using a large model railroad in my course.

• Why a model railroad?– Let’s look at some pictures!


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Projects in C

0

20

40

60

80

100

1 2 3 4 5 6

Year

Percent

Groups Completing Project Code Supplied


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Projects in Ada

0

20

40

60

80

100

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Year

Percent

Groups Completing Project Code Supplied


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Why does Ada succeed where C fails?

• Modeling of scalar quantities– Strong typing– Range checking– Enumeration types

• Parameter modes

• Named parameter association


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• Arrays whose indices do not begin at zero

• Representation clauses for modeling device registers– Record types– Enumeration types


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• High level of abstraction for tasking.– Ada students use rendezvous– C students used semaphores

• Exception handling

• Encapsulation– Package specifications and bodies

• Compilation model– Obsolete units are detected!– No make files!


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Laboratory Assignments

Code for learning Ada features

• Basic language features

• Packages

• Tasking

• Generics

• Exceptions


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LaboratoryAssignments

Code for the course project

• Polling and interrupt based device drivers

• Implementation of whistle class

• Implementation of turnout class– Electro-mechanical devices which

sometimes fail to move correctly– Code must detect and attempt to

correct the problem– Code derived from a state

machine model


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Project Specification & Design Deliverables

• System concept document

• Detailed user manual

• Rumbaugh OMT documents– Object model diagrams– Dynamic model diagrams– Functional model diagrams– Data dictionary

• Package specifications

• Package test plans


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Minimum Project Requirements

• Multiple trains

• At least one train controlled by a human engineer

• No collisions

• Detect and recover from hardware failures– Turnouts– Sensors– Lost cars– Devious professors


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Popular Project Themes

• Races

• Train wars

• Scheduling (usually combined with project in the AI class)


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Where do we gofrom here?


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• Over 50 Schools have inquired about duplicating the laboratory

• Only about 3 schools have actually built a model railroad– Commercial interface boards too

expensive– Too much time or expertise

required to build electronics in house

• My Solution– Design and manufacture

inexpensive plug-n-play model railroad interfaces


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Ada, Model Railroading, and Software Engineering Education John W. McCormick University of Northern Iowa