BlinkBoard: Guiding and monitoring circuit assembly for synchronous and remote physical computing education

Abstract

Motivated by the necessity of guiding and monitoring students when assembling electronic circuits during in-class activities, we propose BlinkBoard, an augmented breadboard that enhances synchronous and remote physical computing classes. BlinkBoard uses LEDs placed on each row of a breadboard to guide, via four distinct blinking patterns, how to place and connect components and wires. It also uses a set of Input/Output pins to sense voltage levels or to generate voltage output at user-specified rows. Our hardware uses an open protocol of JSON commands and responses that can be used directly via a command line interface to control the hardware. Alternatively, these commands can be issued within a front-end graphical application hosted on a computer for a more user-friendly interface, and to ensure bidirectional and real-time communication between the instructor's guiding and monitoring panel, and all the students’ remote BlinkBoards. The BlinkBoard hardware is affordable and simple, partially due to a customized circuit configured via a hardware description language that handles the LEDs’ patterns with minimal load on the Arduino microcontroller. Finally, we briefly show BlinkBoard in use during a workshop with high-school students and an undergraduate design course.