Where's the Bug?: Helping Students Find Errors in Physical Computing

Playground have simplified programming and wiring, enabling students to quickly engineer physical computing projects. But enabling students to rapidly design and build is a double-edged sword: Students can create functioning prototypes without fully understanding the underlying principles. With limited knowledge and experience, students struggle to locate and fix bugs, or errors, in their projects. Absent appropriate debugging tools, students rely on their instructor for locating errors, or worse, turn toward destructive tactics such as tearing apart and rebuilding their project, hoping the bug fixes itself. Students need tools targeted to their ability that scaffold debugging and help them locate bugs in the mixed hardware/software environment of physical computing. I developed Circuit Check to scaffold the debugging process for students. It enables students to observe real-time sensor data and test hardware components through a novel adaptation of the traditional breakpoint for physical computing.