Lessons Learned in Teaching a Complex Distributed Embedded System Project Course

Teaching Cyber-Physical System (CPS) design requires covering significant breadth while ensuring students experience how all the pieces fit together. This paper describes a distributed elevator control system design project that addresses many of the areas required in a CPS project experience. Mapping project aspects to ABET accreditation areas frames a discussion of the course’s treatment of CPS issues. The most important lesson learned is that students benefit from being immersed in and reflecting upon a carefully curated experience with a CPS engineering process rather than being turned loose to invent their own ad hoc approach to building complex systems.