Gamifying the Project in Hardware-based Courses

Using elements of games in the non-gaming systems is known as gamification. It is used recently in many areas to improve some processes. For example, it alleviates the teaching and learning. Students surmount some learning objectives easier if they play games where they are challenged with rivalry factors and collaborate more among each other. This paper presents a new approach of gamifying the practical project in the hardware-based course Microprocessors and Microcontrollers for computer science students. This change significantly improved the course - not only that it improved the average grade of the passed students, but it provoked the students to enroll in other hardware courses of the upper semesters. Even more so, some diploma theses involving microcontrollers were developed for the first time.