TY - GEN
T1 - SPIMbot
T2 - Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005
AU - Zilles, Craig
PY - 2005/6/27
Y1 - 2005/6/27
N2 - This paper describes SPIMbot, an extension to James Larus's widely-used MIPS simulator SPIM, that allows virtual robots to be controlled by writing programs in the MIPS assembly language. SPIMbot was written to provide an engaging environment to motivate students to learn assembly language concepts. The SPIMbot tool allows the development of scenarios - in which students must program the robot to perform certain tasks-and provides the means to compete two robots against each other. In our sophomore/junior-level class, we structure the programming component as a collection of structured assignments that produce sub-components for the robot; these sub-components are then used in a final open-ended programming assignment to produce an entry for a SPIMbot tournament. In our experience, this has been an effective means of engaging students, with many students investing time to aggressively optimize their implementations. SPIMbot has been effectively used in large classes and its source code is freely available [7].
AB - This paper describes SPIMbot, an extension to James Larus's widely-used MIPS simulator SPIM, that allows virtual robots to be controlled by writing programs in the MIPS assembly language. SPIMbot was written to provide an engaging environment to motivate students to learn assembly language concepts. The SPIMbot tool allows the development of scenarios - in which students must program the robot to perform certain tasks-and provides the means to compete two robots against each other. In our sophomore/junior-level class, we structure the programming component as a collection of structured assignments that produce sub-components for the robot; these sub-components are then used in a final open-ended programming assignment to produce an entry for a SPIMbot tournament. In our experience, this has been an effective means of engaging students, with many students investing time to aggressively optimize their implementations. SPIMbot has been effectively used in large classes and its source code is freely available [7].
KW - Assembly language programming
KW - Education
KW - MIPS
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=20444488466&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=20444488466&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:20444488466
SN - 1581139977
SN - 9781581139976
T3 - Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005
SP - 106
EP - 110
BT - Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2005
Y2 - 23 February 2005 through 27 February 2005
ER -