Step-by-step process for running a Buggy Racing project
Contents of this page:
In a nutshell: you need to decide how you’re going to customise the project, get the server up and running, and then run the project with your students.
The steps below break this right down so you can see what’s involved and the sort of things you need to think about before you start.
- Setting up: from set-up to first student login…
- Running: …students do the work….
- Ending: …wrap up the project
From set-up to first student login…
Decide how the students will get the initial editor source code
Cloned from their own GitHub fork (done automatically or manually?), or just unzipped from a shared file?
→ distributing the code.
Decide how you want your students to work
On their own machines, on hosted microservers like Pythonanywhere or repl.it, or on your college or institution’s own server?
→ where to work?
Get the server running
On your own server, or in the cloud. It needs a database to connect to, and must be accessible over the web: so you’ll need to know its URL, which should be running over HTTPS. It’s a standalone Flask server that’s helpfully dockerised so it is well-behaved on cloud services like Heroku, or (if you or your IT team are confident) on your own school server.
→ installing and hosting
Customise it
Run through the set-up phase, making the config fit to the way you or your institution want to run the project. Most settings have sensible defaults, so this isn’t too arduous.
→ customising
Publish the task and tech notes
The config settings not only control how the server runs, but also aspects of the project tasks you’ll be giving to the students, and the supporting material. Once you’ve done the set-up and edited the task list (if you need to), publish them (you can publish tech notes externally if you want to write or host your own).
→ creating the task list
→ publishing tech notes
Register your students
You’ll need to upload a CSV file of your students — this might be as simple as first-names-as-usernames, or could be a detailed data downloaded from your college or learning management system (like Moodle, Canvas, or Blackboard). The server has a utility to help you prepare this from existing spreadsheets.
→ registering students
Add colleagues and Teaching Assistants too
You can add new users — including staff — at any time. In fact you can change the config after the set-up phase too (although it’s best to get everything as close to what you want before your give your students access).
→ registering students
Give your students access
Notify your students of their own passwords (which they can change once they’re in)… your project has begun!
…Students do the work….
Students do tasks, in phases
They must tackle the phases in order, but can choose how thoroughly they implement each task. The default project looks broadly like this (you can change this by editing/adding/removing tasks):
- Phase 0 is just to get the software running
- Phase 1 is making basic improvements
- Phase 2 introduces business logic (the race specs)
- Phase 3 introduces breadth and complexity (multiple buggies!)
- Phase 4 adds users and the API
- Phase 5 adds more feature-like problems
- Phase 6 is the open road
Run races and post results
Depending on your schedule — weekly? nightly? now-and-again? — you can download buggies, calculate the outcome of a race, and upload the results. Winning or losing is fun (and hard to control), but qualifying for a race is the success the students have control over, and the incentive to fine-tune their editors.
→ running races
Keep an eye on buggy uploads and note-taking
Although students are not doing their development work on the race server, it can provide some visibility of engagement or lack of it for early intervention with students who need a little more support.
→ checking on progress
…Wrap up the project
If students must submit, provide a submission link
The buggy racing project doesn’t handle submission for you — that’s down to you and your learning management software (if any). But you can configure a submission deadline and clear links to your submission information or page.
→ how students submit their work
Deactivate the student records and shut down the server
You’re done!