As with the Matlab and Java versions of this, I'm working on creating a set of C language exercises that can be assigned to students in an automated way, like on eClass (Moodle) using Virtual Programming Lab or the "lab test mode" that we use in the EECS department at York University. Here, I'm focusing […]
The assessment of student learning in the formative stage of a university programming class has become very challenging for a number of reasons: the pandemic has generally disrupted learning processes at the elementary and high school levels Prior to the pandemic, reading and note-taking habits had changed, possibly making them less effective. IDE-specific tools catch […]
Heard about Virtual Programming Lab (VPL) and eClass at York and want to "kick the tires" a little? If you haven't already, VPL is a plugin for Moodle (eClass at YorkU) that allows instructors to create interactive programming activities for students. Here is some introductory material. [this may need an update after the update in […]
It's important to have dynamic 24/7 interactive activities for programming classes. There are plenty of solutions out there, including Matlab Grader and Möbius. The folks at Jetbrains have their Academy system, too. What I need, at this stage, is a no bells-and-whistles, auto-grader for Matlab code that can run a unit test on a student's […]
The VPL server in the YorkU EECS department was recently updated (2022/23). This had a small impact on existing VPL scripts. With Java, any script that uses JUnit needs to have its vpl_run.sh and vpl_evaluate.sh scripts updated. Here, I have the run script do the JUnit test directly. The evaluate script does JUnit through the […]
In the previous post I showed you how to use VPL and simAVR together to write a basic activity that would test to see if a student could change or assign the value of a register in the simulated microcontroller using the C programming language. While it was the most straight-forward way that I could […]
In Computer Architecture classes or Embedded Systems classes, it can be really useful to allow for students to be graded on assignments that allow them to interactively explore the inner workings of a microprocessor. One way is to have the students create programs in a hardware description language like Verilog or VHDL. Another way is […]
The SIMAVR package is for simulating AVR processors like the ATMEGA328 on the Arduino UNO. I'm looking to try to use it with VPL in courses like our computer architecture class, EECS 2021, as a way of simulating the UNO's processor in exercises involving assembler and C programming. On a Mac, we use HomeBrew. The […]
This is an example exercise in VPL. Grade is out of 1. All the students have to do is uncomment the creation of the MathVector object. Want to reproduce this example? PreLabC.java (the template for the student to work on) solution.txt (what the student's solution _could_ look like) MathVector.java (the class with all the methods […]
In our first year programming class for engineering students, EECS 1021, we're using modern features like jShell and var. Unfortunately, the OS that our VPL instance sits on came with an older version of Java, so we've had to modify our scripts to point to the Java 17 JDK. If you get an error like […]