A microprocessor-based development system for digital systems design education

Architecture design education is evolved in respond to the emergence of information technologies as well as globalization. In the new era, digital design education is becoming a design platform to integrate technology and design. This paper aims to provide overviews of digital architectural design education. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework to examine the focus of digital design education and the relationship among (1) design contents, (2) digital technologies and tools, and (3) design theory and methodologies in digital design studios. The attempts in National Cheng Kung University in the past 10 years provide the foundation for observation and discussion. The pedagogy and approaches are examined, and the trend and potential directions are reported.

Digital design classes are increasingly using programmable logic devices (PLD) to augment the educational experience. Previous works discuss the advantages of using PLDs, such as complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), in digital logic design education and highlight the instructorpsilas experience of integrating these teaching methods in the classroom. This paper instead focuses on the studentspsila experience to determine the overall effectiveness of using PLD boards. By using statistics from a comprehensive survey that targets student feedback and opinion, and by comparing our classpsilas final exam scores with a previous class that did not use PLDs, we are able to informatively assess the benefits of using PLDs for digital design education.

IntroductionThe conventional method for teaching removable partial denture (RPD) design using a pencil drawing on a solid cast has always been the basis for teaching RPD design in most dental schools at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. This does not apply to RPD fabrication technology, as more laboratories have recently adopted more efficient and versatile digital techniques to design and fabricate RPD frameworks.MethodsAt the University of Iowa College of Dentistry, we created a pilot workshop to assess the efficiency of a new approach to teaching RPD design utilizing this new digital RPD technology as a teaching tool for graduate prosthodontics residents. Three first-year prosthodontics residents were enrolled in the workshop, which involved learning the new digital workflow of designing RPD.ResultsThis new teaching approach very successfully achieved its educational goals. The residents reported that the digital RPD teaching approach enriched their knowledge and deepened their understanding of RPD design.DiscussionThe technique garnered significant interest from the students and seemed to also increase their understanding of the steps involved in RPD fabrication as well as the different components of the RPD.

For some time now, the notion that "an algorithm is an algorithm" has been emphasized in digital system design. In approaching such design problems, the question of hardware versus software implementation of the algorithm should be left to the last. In fact, such approaches have not been viable until the advent of the microprocessor, and software design has seemingly gone its own way independently of hardware design. But has it really? It is becoming increasingly clear that structured approaches to the design of digital systems, hardware or software, have evolved in both areas and are virtually identical. It is possible to teach a course on digital system design so that a diverse group can understand and learn from each other's background. It is also possible to have a laboratory wherein realistic projects can be undertaken. In this paper, the digital system design sequence and laboratory facilities at Northwestern University will be discussed. Also, desirable design tools will be postulated.

Digital design tools typically have a high barrier to entry: setup is challenging for beginners, and installation often requires a high-performance workstation. In this work, we present an educational framework for digital design using cloud-based resources and open-source tools. We leverage Google Colab notebooks to allow users to run FPGA simulation and design tools remotely, using only a simple web browser. The tools are capable of running simulations with visualizations, and can generate FPGA bitstreams for commercial devices. In addition, we have developed several notebook-based labs to teach digital design topics, including arithmetic, combinational and sequential circuits, and FSMs.

Digital fabrication laboratories play a role as an educational environment in which different learning activities incorporate advanced technological developments. Digital fabrication design education often involves exploratory and scaffolded processes of materialising ideas into products. However, FabLabs poses multiple challenges for pedagogy and design learning. Based on a large-scale digital fabrication course in a higher education institution, we examine whether teamwork carried out in a digital fabrication environment improves creativity. Furthermore, we analyse if teamwork affects self-assessment of learning activities involving building tangible artefacts. Finally, we examine whether the type of produced prototype affects the team's overall performance. The results allow for digital fabrication design education recommendations, including interventions intended for improving the creativity of the outcomes, team performance, and learning of different digital fabrication issues.

Artificial Intelligence–Generated Content (AIGC) is rapidly reshaping creative industries and transforming the epistemology, processes, and pedagogies of digital media art. Despite widespread adoption of generative models in concept art, digital illustration, and character design, the theoretical foundations guiding their integration into higher education remain insufficiently developed. This theoretical–framework article examines how AIGC reconfigures creative cognition, studio pedagogy, and ethical discourse within digital character design education. Synthesizing interdisciplinary literature on human–AI co-creativity, constructivist learning, studio-based pedagogy, and AI ethics, the study proposes the TAE Framework as a holistic model for understanding the multidimensional influence of AIGC on curriculum design and creative learning. The framework conceptualizes AIGC as a cognitive collaborator, an artistic catalyst, and an ethical negotiation site. It provides implications for curriculum redesign, human–AI co-creative studio instruction, assessment reform, and responsible AI literacy. This work contributes a foundational theoretical lens for future empirical research and offers practical directions for educators seeking to cultivate creativity, criticality, and ethical discernment in an intelligent learning environment.

Digital design education is shifting from software and hardware application to issue-based, methodology-driven and technology-driven exploration. The attempts in design education have to address the future needs for architects, for instance the tectonic design. Our design studio tries to structure the design process to help students understand the principles and use the digital technology to operate tectonic design issue in the process. The dialogue with the materials (virtual and physical ones) is integrated with the exercises. The attempts in the design studio undertaken in National Cheng Kung University provide the foundation for observation and discussion. The pedagogy and approaches are examined, and the potential directions are reported.

Hardware software co-design is becoming increasingly important to the embedded systems industry. It will soon be fundamental to digital systems design. As such, students in electrical and computer engineering and in computer science should be introduced to hardware-software co-design early in their undergraduate education. We are designing laboratory modules which introduce concepts of hardware-software co-design in an undergraduate's first course on microcontrollers and digital systems design. Students use design automation tools to develop FPGA-based hardware for use with an 8051-microcontroller and use common software development tools to develop microcontroller software in C or assembly language. Co-simulation of hardware and software is enabled using a simulation model of the 8051 that we developed. Preliminary results are encouraging. Students who take the lab perform better in the associated lecture class than those who do not take the lab and appear to develop a greater appreciation for digital systems design. We believe such laboratories will be a common component of computer engineering classes in the future.

Computer engineering education has a strong dependence on laboratory work. Teaching students in the lab does not always consist of teaching the required course material, but also of a vast number of tutorials on different platforms. In many cases, these tutorials take significant amount of time which could be better spent doing actual course material. For that reason, E2LP project has developed a platform to be used in multiple courses, covering majority of the computer engineering curriculum. This paper presents a first step in the curriculum - a course in digital system design with laboratory exercises which are implemented on E2LP platform. The platform not only gives students hands-on experience with design and verification of digital systems, but it also provides a bridge between hardware and software because using the same platform in future courses allows students to re-use their results from previous courses and continue building their knowledge. First impression of students is positive about the experience with the platform and their feeling of usefulness of the course for their career.

Digital system design is a competitive business, with high complexity and a multi-aspect character. Together with nowadays increasing demand of application-and customer-specific embedded systems, suiting supporting design techniques and tools are needed. We are considering the concept of quality within digital system design in order to assure that the systems designed comply as much as possible with the requirements of their future customers. Aim of the paper is to provide and discuss backgrounds, ideas, and direction for future work in the field of quality-driven design decision making.KeywordsDecision ModelQuality ModelDesign OptionQuality Function DeploymentMulticriteria DecisionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This paper proposes a digital spacecraft overall power system design, simulation, analysis and verification mode, forming a unified simulation model based on a unified model, fully autonomously controllable, and the simulation results and power distribution map, grounding map and tasks time series is deeply integrated to realize the dynamic analysis and display of the whole satellite power supply and distribution system, as well as the digital flight of the ground test and the in-orbit flight process, and combined with a lunar probe model application example to carry out verification work. This has important guiding significance for the overall design and verification of the spacecraft.

Targeting core challenges in spacecraft control subsystems, this paper proposes a model-based digital design and verification system. By constructing a “V-flow” driven digital design architecture and hierarchical verification system, it achieves closed-loop optimization of the “design-simulation-verification-iteration” process. The research reveals deep characteristics of control subsystems in dimensions including information flow complexity, reliability demands, autonomy requirements, and multi-disciplinary coupling. Based on practical development of control subsystems, the system is validated to shorten development cycles, reduce design costs, and improve verification efficiency. The research outcomes provide a reusable methodological framework for spacecraft control subsystem development, offering significant practical value for advancing the digital transformation of aerospace equipment.

This paper presents a project based teaching experience in an advanced digital systems design course with emphasis on design methodologies and laboratory assignments. Projects are the core of the practised teaching methodology and are structured in a pedagogical format according to the course programme. The use of the FPGA technology as the most suitable implementation technology for digital design teaching purposes is discussed. The course structure, oriented to the development of real working digital systems, challenges the students and increases their motivation. This way, the learning process is improved and the classes are more productive. A laboratory development infrastructure based on a FPGA device, used to implement a real-time video processing system, is presented. Examples of laboratory projects implemented with this infrastructure in a recent course edition are also presented.

Methods in Digital Architectural Design: Understanding the Aspects That Enable a Re-Active, Two-Way Communication in the Digital Architectural Design Education