iPod Touch Integration FeasibilityAbstractiPhone and iPod Touch apps are becoming increasingly popular for leisure and business. To capitalize on this interest the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering would like to determine if integration of programming for the iPhone platform in its embedded systems curriculum is feasible.Based on requirements defined by embedded systems professors the team designed and implemented labs for a experimental iPhone programming class (CprE 388X). To test the usefulness and quality of the lab implementation we held a month long test class where prospective CPRE 388X students completed the labs themselves. The feedback collected from the test class participants was then used to create a feasibility analysis. The team and the department have agreed to offer the CprE 388X Fall 2010.

May1023Autumn Winkie

Chad NelsonMorgan JanesSean FreitagTim Danzer

ClientDepartment of

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Iowa State University

AdvisorAkhilesh Tyagi

ProblemThe iPhone and iPod Touch is quickly becoming one of the most desired mobile platforms. Companies all over the world are trying to find a way to create their own applications in hopes of capitalizing on Apple’s successful product. Because of the demand that the corporate world has for development knowledge on this platform, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State is interested in adding it to their curriculum.

SolutionOur team designed and implemented several labs based on embedded systems principals to create a curriculum for a new class, CprE 388X. We tested the feasibility of our implementation by holding a month long test class with prospective CprE 388X students as participants. The participants feedback was used to determine the feasibility of the new curriculum.

Design Requirements Embedded System professors identifiedthe following functional requirements: • Event loop• Event scheduling• Resource Management• Memory• Processor• Energy

• Networking (Client/Server) • Cooperative and Distributed Decision Making

Non-functional requirements: the labs need to be interesting and fun and for students

Device and Environment ParametersThe platform has the following capabilities and constraints• Cocoa Touch• Accelerometers• Open GL ES• Audio/Video• CoreLocation (WiFi Location)• Networking (WiFi/Bluetooth)• 128 MB of system memory

The development environment• Snow Leopard• Xcode 3.2• iPhone SDK 3.1• Objective-C

TestingWe held a test class, CprE 275X, with two sections for the duration of March. • 32 Participants• Prereq of CprE 288

• Expectations•Students attend each class period of their section

(two hours twice a week for four weeks)•Students complete as much of the assigned lab as

possible during class time• Curriculum• Week 1: • Session 1: Intro Lab• Session 2: Resource Management

• Week 2:• Session 3 and 4: Guitar App

• Week 3:• Session 5 and 6: FindMe App

• Week 4:• Session 7 and 8: Ad-Hoc Networking

•Goals• Determine the ease, quality, length, and popularity

of each of our labs•Determine the usefulness of the accompanied

documentation and lecture• Identify common issues and areas in need of

improvement before CprE 388X begins in Fall 2010

SummaryDue to positive response of our implementation from students of the test class, prospective CprE 388X students, and embedded systems professors it has been deemed feasible to integrate iPod touch/iPhone programming into the embedded systems curriculum. The course CprE 388X will utilize the documentation and labs that we have created to teach students embedded systems programming for the mobile platform. CprE 388X will be offered Fall 2010.

Guitar App

FindMe App