REU Site: End-User Programming of Cyber-Physical Systems

Virginia Commonwealth University will establish a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site conducting research projects on end-user programming for cyber-physical systems. Due to the growth in the number and diversity of programmable devices, end-users (i.e., those not trained as programmers) are increasingly becoming de facto programmers, configuring and commanding their own systems.

At the same time, computing is increasingly interacting with the physical world, as consumer robotics and home automation systems are becoming commonplace. In this new context, where end-users program cyber-physical systems, both the programming languages they use to specify programs and the programming tools that help them avoid common mistakes will become vital to their productivity, security, and safety.

This REU site will train 9 undergraduate students per year, including a significant cohort of those traditionally under-represented in computing, as contributors who will ultimately research, design, and evaluate novel techniques for end-user programming of cyber-physical systems.

This project will advance the state-of-the-art in end-user programming for cyber-physical systems, an activity which will impact hundreds of millions of users in the coming decade. The project’s research strategy is to apply the hard-won lessons from traditional software engineering and CS education research to end-user programming, making improvements upon the relevant tools and languages, ultimately making end-user programs more robust, secure and easier to write.

The project will leverage programming environments targeting novice programmers, such as block-based programming. After embodying new research ideas as prototypes, the research team will evaluate them via quantitative user studies, analyze generated user study data, create and conduct large-scale surveys, and qualitative methods such as interviewing.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.