The robot competition: A recipe for success in undergraduate microcomputers courses

The goal of VCU´s mandatory junior-level microcomputers course is to introduce students to concepts of instruction set architecture design, computer interfacing, and microcontroller programming in assembly and C. Traditionally, the laboratory portion of this course culminated in a final project of the student´s choosing. Recently, we replaced the final project with a robotics project, where students built a microcontroller-based robot and competed in a collection of competitions. Placement in each competition was considered to determine the students´ project grades. We believe this approach fostered a spirit of competition that encouraged students to increase their level of effort, provided a more uniform system of grading, and better conveyed the course material. Here we document these efforts and attempt to provide readers with a framework for implementing a similar competition in their microcomputers or embedded systems courses.