THEME

The curriculum developed covers a range of important and elementary programming

concepts which apply to not only Microsoft TouchDevelop but most programming languages.

The concepts were introduced in our previous lesson plans but as a follow up, these lessons

will be directed at the Engduino. They will focus on two main parts of the Engduino - LEDs

and accelerometers and the STEM principles such as the maths and physics behind the

accelerometer. Our aim is to make these tutorials easy enough for the students to understand

and provide exercises which will engage the students and enable them pick up more interest in

these topics. The learning theory for these lessons will be mainly Competitive learning, as

stated in the introduction document,so as to promote learning in a creative and fun way but

also push the students to do their best.

SCOPE

This course contains teaching material for students age 11 - 16. Tutorials should be done in

50mins classes, exercises can be started during this period and given to the students as

homework if not completed or started. Some tutorials and exercises such as the first two are

short and can be combined into one class if the material covering them is finished quickly.

CONTENT

Engduino 101 - This tutorial covers the basics of using TouchDevelop to program an

Engduino, it was previously introduced in our last lesson plan but we believe this will be very

valuable to the students. It will introduce the concept of the GameLoop Event which allows for

code to be run on the Engduino on a cycle. It will also introduce the Engduino Library to allow

for communication between TouchDevelop and the Engduino. This tutorial will require

concepts learnt from previous tutorials, namely the Conditional Statements Tutorial and the

Iteration Tutorial. The school children will create a piece of code that will make the Endguino.

Accelerometer – This documentation explain the mathematical content of an accelerometer

module in Engduino which can measure acceleration in 3 dimensions. First, it explain gravity

by showing the gravitational force equation. By defining every single variables in the equation,

student will get to know that gravity is just the force of two object exerted on each other. It will

then describe acceleration as the rate at which the velocity changes and show that it has both

magnitude as well as direction. Finally, this document will get into more details about the

mathematical concept of how the accelerometer works in Engduino.

Engduino Lights and Accelerometer Tutorials - These tutorials allow the student to

communicate with the Engduino, manipulating the lights and getting acceleration sensor data.

They get progressively harder and aim to cover all ranges of ability of the children. The first

tutorial shows them how to make a blank Engduino project and use some easy lines of code to

change the LEDs. The final tutorial, the hardest, incorporates both the LEDs and the

accelerometer combined. This is important as it allows the student to reach the end goal of

using the Engduino as a pothole sensor, by learning how to use the Engduino with

TouchDevelop and generating some simple code.

Line Graphing Tutorial - This tutorial teaches the students how to plot a line graph by

using functions that create the x and y-axes, plot points and then plot a line connecting those

points. It was initially planned so that the student would actually have to draw the axes and

plot the points/line themselves but the math behind it turned out to be too complicated for the

targeted age range due to the unconventional origin position. Instead, I wrote functions to

draw the axes and plot the points/line and put them in a library and the students will only

need to supply several parameters to those functions to plot a complete line graph. Being able

to plot a graph will be useful when the students would like to present the Engduino sensor

reading in a clear and representative manner. It can also be applicable for graphing results

from other subjects such as Physics which require plotting of values.

Engduino Bluetooth Guide - This tutorial was designed to provide an opportunity for the

schoolchildren to use an Engduino with Bluetooth to communicate with an Android

application written in TouchDevelop using Cordova. However, due to time limitations, whilst

we have succeeded in achieving that goal, we have not achieved an easy way to complete it. As

such, whilst the guide is included, and an example application published, it is not expected for

schoolchildren to be able to follow the guide. Although, it could be used as material for

students who finish the teaching material before their peers or wish to branch outside the

given material. The main complexities come from having to install an Android Emulator

(which also means getting the Android SDKs) and having to install TouchDevelop locally

(which includes installing Cordova and NodeJS)

DIFFICULTIES

As we had some difficulties in the development of this teaching material, namely the

complexity of the Bluetooth Modules for students, we decided to remove its use from the main

content of the material. Instead, it will be available for students who show keen interest and

want to know more or for those students are far ahead of their peers.

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