Arduino4Teachers

Arduino4Teacher is an educational tool for teaching Arduino in a classroom. It allows teachers and students to easily collaborate in developing software targeting Arduino boards by using Arduino IDE. An intuitive control panel allows the teacher to create isolated, self-contained, Web accessible development environment for each student. Thus, students can interact with Arduino IDE and program one or more Arduino boards through a simple Web browser. The teacher can interact with the students through co-browsing functionalities observing what students do and directly act when necessary.

Architecture and technologies

Arduino4Teachers provides a customized Ubuntu-based live distribution that can be stored in a USB flash drive. The distribution is equipped with a full installation of Docker and with a working Node.js environment. When the distribution is booted, a Node.js-based Web application is started providing the teacher with a control panel for managing classrooms, students, and development environments and students with an interface to access their development environments. These are implemented through Docker containers and OS.js instances. Together.js library is exploited to implement co-browsing functionalities.

Features

Teacher control panel functionalities:

• add/remove a class
• add/remove a student
• add/remove a development environment for a student
• add/remove association between a development environment and a board

Student access panel:

• login/logout functionalities
• list of the development environments associated with the student
• redirect to the OS.js instance

REST API

Authentication

Method	URL	Semantics	Parameters	Return Type
POST	/login	authenticate to the sytem	username (body), password (body)	-
GET	/logout	destroy the session	-	-

Classes

Method	URL	Semantics	Parameters	Return Type
GET	/classes	list of all classes	-	array of class
GET	/classes/(class_uuid)	details about a class	class_uuid (url)	class
POST	/classes	create a class	class (body)	class
DELETE	/classes/(class_uuid)	remove a class	class_uuid (url)	-
PUT	/classes/(class_uuid)	change class information	class_uuid (url), class (body)	class
GET	/classes/(class_uuid)/students	list of all students in a class	class_uuid (url)	array of student
PUT	/classes/(class_uuid)/students	add a student in a class	class_uuid (url), student (body)	class
DELETE	/classes/(class_uuid)/students/(student_uuid)	remove a student from a class	class_uuid (url), student_uuid (url)	class

Students

Method	URL	Semantics	Parameters	Return Type
GET	/students	list of all students	-	array of student
GET	/students/(student_uuid)	details about a student	student_uuid (url)	student
POST	/students	create a student	student (body)	student
DELETE	/students/(student_uuid)	remove a student	student_uuid (url)	-
PUT	/students/(student_uuid)	change student information	student_uuid (url), student (body)	student

Environments

Method	URL	Semantics	Parameters	Return Type
GET	/environments	list of all environments	-	array of environment
GET	/environments/(environment_uuid)	details about an environments	environment_uuid (url)	environment
POST	/environments	create an environment	environment (body)	environment
DELETE	/environments/(environment_uuid)	remove an environment	environment_uuid (url)	-
PUT	/environments/(environment_uuid)/status/{start or stop}	start/stop and environment	environment_uuid (url)	environment
PUT	/environments/(environment_uuid)	change environment information	environment_uuid (url), environment (body)	student
GET	/environments/owner/(student_uuid)	list of all the environment for a student	student_uuid (url)	array of environment