The team behind London South Bank University’s Electrical and Electronic Engineering courses have been using Arm IP and teaching resources as core elements in their courses and student projects – in everything from doorbells to robot cars. Here, some key faculty members explain the appeal.
Oswaldo Cadenas, head of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the London South Bank University, is holding a device that is made by one of his students for their final-year project: a printed circuit board with an Arm microcontroller and rechargeable battery. It fixes to the glass door of Oswaldo’s office and has a very important role to play.
“I used to work in an office with five other people,” Oswaldo explains. “I’d have students knocking at the door. When I'd go to open it, they were always looking for someone else who wasn’t there. It was annoying.”
Oswaldo gave one of his students a project brief. This was to build a system where, when visitors touch the name of the specific staff member they are trying to reach, it prompts a notification on that person’s computer. The student had to choose how to design and build it, with a small budget. They chose an Arm processor and an Integrated Development Environment. “We respect whatever the student wants to use in their final-year projects,” says Oswaldo. “It's up to them. But more and more students are choosing Arm.”
We’d like to extend this work from the core to the system, to the network. Working on intermittent computing systems, at a different level of abstraction. Covering all aspects from single code up to the entire framework or the entire infrastructure, is the long-term plan.”
That makes sense. Students at London South Bank have a great deal of exposure to Arm IP and resources, whether in its modules from Computer Architecture to Advanced Instrumentation and Design.They are also exposed to Arm academic resources in their second-year group projects, in the Professional Practice and Team Design Project module.
Students get to choose how to build that final project. And it’s not just about intelligent doorbells. With AI now so disruptive to almost every industry, getting to grips with AI and machine learning is key for electronic engineering students. Especially running these technologies on the edge.
Other projects have focused on edge-based machine learning and wearable technologies, making the most of the Arm IP’s low-power capability. Oswaldo recalls one student submitting an Internet of Things project that used an Arm microcontroller to control household appliances, such as lighting, doors and windows. That student chose Arm IP because of its power and functionality.
According to Oswaldo, Arm’s technology is proving especially popular among the university’s more mature and capable students.
“These students are already essentially engineers without the title,” he says. “They’ve been in the industry, often working for organizations that make big products developed around an Arm processor. So, when it comes to selecting their own project, they will choose Arm technology, where they have experience.”
Early career students are also using Arm. By studying at London South Bank and using Arm IP from the Arm Academic Access program, the university’s less experienced students are gaining invaluable hands-on knowledge of industry-leading tools that are shaping the real world. And that means a boost when they start talking to recruiters.
The South Bank team’s journey with Arm began when they started using Arm tools to run projects. Impressed with the quality, simplicity, accessibility and cost-effectiveness of Arm technology, they realized adopting Arm IP as the next step was a “no-brainer.”
Professor Perry Xiao is Course Director at London South Bank’s School of Engineering. He recalls setting a project where students developed real-time operating system prototypes. They didn’t need any hardware, just a browser. “It was so easy, affordable and intuitive,” he says. “It was fantastic.”
Perry describes Arm-based hardware as “the best microcontrollers we use in our teaching.”
“Arm-based boards are much easier to use than other microcontrollers, and are very efficient and powerful,” he adds. “Arm offers a 16-bit analog-to-digital converter, which is much better than a lot of others. It has onboard space where you can temporarily save data. And it's very easy to connect with other devices, over Ethernet or Wi-Fi. That satisfies a lot of our teaching requirements, as well as the student projects.”
But it’s not just about the power and adaptability of the IP itself. According to the London South Bank academics, another key Arm strength is the quality of its technical reference manuals. They describe them as accessible, well-written and very well explained – and a key facet of the students’ learning.
“When students develop a prototype, they need to write a report about it, and a big chunk of that is a technical report,” says Oswaldo. “It should serve as a manual guide, explaining the features well for anyone who comes after them. It needs very good images and code, and strong examples.
The students see all these things when they use Arm documentation. Other providers’ documentation can lead you deep into the weeds. You will invariably come up against something hard to grasp – even as a teacher, not to mention the students. With Arm, that’s no problem whatsoever. Its documentation is a great example, and something I’d like the students to replicate.”
Another key area in which the team uses Arm technology is in the outreach projects it delivers for secondary school students. Children regularly visit the university, in groups of 20-30, to enjoy a hands-on taste of 3D printing, computer science and electronics, often using platforms like Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
“We have a whole set of electronic kit with breadboards, resistors, LEDs, buzzers and so on,” says Perry. “We get the students learning the basics of electronics and programming, even composing simple music, like ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. They really enjoy it.”
Elsewhere, the team also runs regular competitions in programming – using a robotic car based on a BBC micro:bit, with an ultrasound sensor and infrared transmitter and receiver onboard. Contestants write Python code directly to the car, aiming to keep it on the track and away from the obstacles. “That one is very popular, especially with female students, including computer science students who come to learn MicroPython programming,” says Oswaldo. “We have a competition at the end of it, with pizzas and drinks.”
As for the future, Arm will remain core to the London South Bank syllabus. Its Embedded Software Design module will cover the Cortex-M4 processor core and assembly language. The students will be able to choose to use Arm-based development boards for mini projects. In the Computer Architecture and Operating Systems module, the team is planning to update the assembly language teaching material to the latest Arm architectures. They will also continue to explore the opportunities of running AI models on Arm microprocessors and microcontrollers.
The team will also have one eye on its spin-out company, Biox Systems Ltd, which designs and manufactures instruments to measure the moisture content of people’s skin. This involves reading, processing and sharing the sensor data. Its products run on Arm-based microcontrollers because of their low power consumption, high performance, and ease of use. The team is now looking into wireless communication protocols and the ability to run machine learning models on those microcontrollers.
But the core business here is teaching. And Arm’s academic support will continue to be invaluable.
“Our department values being part of the program, as it makes it easier to adopt and use Arm’s academic resources,” says Perry. “Its website has been very useful in helping us prepare for teaching. And the Arm team has been very helpful whenever we’ve had a question or problems. We’re very grateful to Arm for facilitating.”
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