Robotics Software Engineering Education: An Experience Report

• Published in: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (Online) pp. 336 - 346
• Main Authors: Manjunath, Meenakshi, Raja, Jeshwitha Jesus, Herrler, Rainer, Daun, Marian
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 27.04.2025
• Subjects: Computer science; Education; Internet of Things; Knowledge engineering; Logic; Mechanical engineering; Problem-solving; Robotics; Robots; Schedules; Software engineering; Software Engineering Education
• ISSN: 2832-7578
• DOI: 10.1109/CSEET66350.2025.00042

Software engineering education has been predominantly focused on educating software engineering and computer science students. However, software engineering has increasingly spread into other disciplines, such as robotics. However, in addition to computer science, robotics programs are based on a number of other disciplines, including electrical and mechanical engineering. This not only limits the time and courses available for software engineering education but also requires educational approaches to address a student body with distinct skill sets and problem-solving methods. In addition, robotics students are faced with complex software engineering problems, as robotics systems become more complex and integrate with other systems, such as Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things. The integration of services and the collaboration between different systems require advanced software engineering skills and the ability to work on complex business logics connecting multiple systems. This paper reports on our experiences of teaching software engineering to robotics students. We report of two installments of a software engineering course in a robotics degree program. After the first installment, we changed the course schedule to better reflect robotics students' needs and to place more emphasis on the specific characteristics of software engineering and the related skills that differ from other technical engineering subjects. Consequently, we share our insights from the initial implementation of the course and offer comprehensive insights for enhancing future iterations.