Educating embedded systems hackers: a practitioner's perspective

Theoretical skills imparted during university education in Embedded Systems often surpass their practical counterpart. The contribution of this paper is a defined set of practical skills which bridge the gap between a sound theoretical education in embedded systems and the skillset acquired by experienced practitioners in the field. The presentation of each skill is accompanied by common solution patterns, state-of-practice technologies, and a set of exercises to provide practical uptake of each skill. The proposed skillset is based on consistent observations over the years, of graduating students performing "hands-on" projects; the proposed approach for imparting the skillset is motivated by experiences with Embedded Systems education at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden.