A MQTT-based infrastructure to support Cooperative Online Learning Activities

Teaching the processes of designing digital electronic systems is becoming an increasingly challenging task. Design methodologies and tools have evolved to cope with the evergrowing complexity and density, raising the abstraction level of the source design far away from the logic circuit. However, it is of paramount importance that fresh students start by understanding the fundamental concepts of Boolean algebra, design, and optimization of combinational and sequential gate-level circuits, before moving to higher abstract concepts and tools. For this, hands-on practice with simple real digital circuits is essential to understanding the essentials of the operation of digital circuits and how digital data is propagated and transformed from block to block. In this paper we present a distributed infrastructure based on the network protocol MQTT to support the deployment of distributed digital systems built with parts located in different physical locations. Thus, promoting the implementation of collaborative online learning/teaching activities will be one of our main goals. Experimental results show latencies between remote sites in the range of a few tens of milliseconds, which is acceptable for running simple digital systems at low speeds, which is necessary for being perceived and understanded by people.