Hi Sebastian,

At the moment, we don't have a way to reset/release an account. If we did, it would obviously need to be done by the owner, as only they could say they are happy to do it! But it is not on the plan for now, and here is a reason why for the student case...

One thing we are hoping mbed enables is that the student can own the hardware, rather than "the lab" owning it - this way, they are free to use it in any projects, coursework, hobbies etc. What we've seen a lot over the years is development boards that are restricted to use in the lab, and "student" versions of tools that are only available with the lab computers. And this really gets in the way of use outside a scheduled lab (which is where you *really* learn to use something!).

The mbed tools mean the software is usable from anywhere, not just the lab, and hopefully the same is true with the hardware - it is not a $1k development board so can hopefully be owned and taken home/reused by the students. That means it can all be applied outside a lab too.

It would be great to get feedback on the realities here. In summary, our experiment in this area is to see how things change if you encourage kitting out the students with hardware/tools, rather than "the lab" (so far, the results look very promising!)

Simon

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your reply. Comments below.

Simon Ford wrote:

Hi Sebastian,

At the moment, we don't have a way to reset/release an account. If we did, it would obviously need to be done by the owner, as only they could say they are happy to do it! But it is not on the plan for now, and here is a reason why for the student case...

We think that's a good reason to work in the "account reset" feature.

Simon Ford wrote:

...
One thing we are hoping mbed enables is that the student can own the hardware, rather than "the lab" owning it - this way, they are free to use it in any projects, coursework, hobbies etc. What we've seen a lot over the years is development boards that are restricted to use in the lab, and "student" versions of tools that are only available with the lab computers. And this really gets in the way of use outside a scheduled lab (which is where you *really* learn to use something!).

The mbed tools mean the software is usable from anywhere, not just the lab, and hopefully the same is true with the hardware - it is not a $1k development board so can hopefully be owned and taken home/reused by the students. That means it can all be applied outside a lab too.

It would be great to get feedback on the realities here. In summary, our experiment in this area is to see how things change if you encourage kitting out the students with hardware/tools, rather than "the lab" (so far, the results look very promising!)

Simon

I Agree, in part.

In our course, the students could carry the boards to their homes to keep working outside lab hours, no problem with this as they pass through the semester, it was planned this way. The boards are owned by the lab (they arrived as a donation from NXP) and provided to the students on loan.

Of course, we cannot force the students to buy the mbeds. Besides this, US$100 (and even US$60) is a lot of money for a student in our country.

Regards,

Sebastian.-

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for the feedback; just the sort of insight that is useful. We'll look at seeing what we can come up with that could help make this work.

Simon

Simon,

The issue of accounts is also of interest to me.  Some background.

I have been planning to develop an ARM based board for use by all 1st and 2nd year students in our electrical and electronic engineering courses to complement our existing (in-house developed) 8-bit development facilities.  We had almost decided on a Stellaris chip (some nice features) until I read about the MBED device on the "Hack-a-day" website.  On ordering some units we were taken with the device and its support infra-structure.

Currently we are designing a small motherboard unit similar to the Bob2 board and hope to have a prototype running by early January.  Extras will include a couple of H-bridge chips, 16*2 LCD display, 4 push switches and screw terninals to access the full range of I/O facilities.  Initial production will be over 50 units with more added each year.

Our usage is likely to be based on giving the students a unit for 9 months and then giving them the option of buying the unit (at or below cost price).  We, like you, are keen to get students seeing these units as tools, and to be of use in more than just programming classes.  For example, as data loggers for lab experiments  and for use in home projects.

If we plan to commit to this programme for a number of years we are interested in how MBED develops.  A number of questions arise

1. How do you see the programme develop over the next 2/3 years rather than just in the next 6 months?
2. Is ARM committed to the programme?
3. If you really want to target the educational market then some form of account management would be helpful. Is there anything that ties a particular MBED unit to a fixed login?
4. Could your current servers cope with perhaps 50 to 60 students logging in within a 5-minute period?
5. Is it posible that, sometime in the future, you will sell a software package that would create a local version of your server?  The biggest concern that has been raised is  - "What happens if the MBED servers go down, MBED project is closed down, or our external internet link goes down".

Great to see such an interesting concept come to fruition.

Jim

Hi,

I can understand the advantages of the student owning the hardware and fully support it.

Unfortunately, our budget doesn't allow us to buy 20 mBeds for students each year and so the lab owns them. We can't expect the students to fork out £50 of their own either.

This is a big problem that may force us to move away from the mBed. We are currently trialing them in a course that used to use the PIC. We are having to create a generic account and password for each mBed and the student uses this. Not ideal, but that's what we're forced to do.

Please put in an account reset feature.

Sam Wane, Staffordshire University, Robotics Lecturer

Hi Sam,

Have no fear, take a look here. We offer to sponsor additional accounts for educational use:

• http://mbed.org/handbook/Education

I'd hope this gives you what you require, whilst still allowing every student to have their own account. Please tell us if this does not solve your problem, but otherwise just send us details of your requirements and we'll get on it. Hopefully this is the best of both worlds.

Thanks,

Simon