VIPLE: Visual IoT/Robotics Programming Language Environment for Computer Science Education

Abstract

Microsoft released its Robotics Developer Studio (MSRDS) and Visual Programming Language (VPL) in 2006. Microsoft VPL is service-oriented, uses workflow-based visual programming, and has strong support for parallel computing. It is a milestone and flagship in software engineering and in computer science education. Many universities and high schools have adopted VPL as a tool for teaching computing and engineering concepts and for programming robots. Unfortunately, as part of Microsoft's restructuring plan, the robotics division of Microsoft Research was suspended on September 22, 2014, leaving the Microsoft VPL community without updates and support. Arizona State University (ASU) is among the schools that adopted VPL since its first release in 2006. We started to find a solution to our VPL-based curriculum in 2014. This paper presents our research and development of a new visual programming language and its development environment: ASU VIPLE (Visual IoT/Robotics Programming Language Environment). ASU VIPLE extends the discontinued Microsoft VPL to sustain our curriculum and to help the community with their VPL projects. ASU VIPLE supports LEGO EV3 and all IoT devices based on an open architecture. ASU VIPLE integrates engineering design process, workflow, fundamental programming concepts, control flow, parallel computing, event-driven programming seamlessly into the curriculum. It has been pilot tested at Arizona State University in summer 2015 and in spring 2016, as well as in several other universities. ASU VIPLE software and documents can be freely downloaded at: http://venus.eas.asu.edu/WSRepository/VIPLE/.