Thanks to everyone who joined the Structured Debugging Strategies with VEX V5 workshop! In this session, we explored how debugging can be more than just fixing mistakes — it can be a powerful learning experience for students.
We started by looking at debugging as a teaching strategy, including the idea of “debugging by design,” where students learn by creating, finding, and fixing bugs. Participants practiced identifying bugs in VEX V5 projects, discussed what information is needed to debug successfully, and reflected on how it feels to find and fix a bug.
During the workshop, we explored different “bug buckets,” including physical bugs, syntax bugs, and semantic bugs. We looked at examples such as wrong ports, loose connections, missing punctuation, indentation issues, reverse conditions, and misplaced logic. Participants also created their own buggy projects with 2–3 intentional bugs to challenge others.
One big takeaway from the workshop was that creating bugs can demonstrate understanding. Students need to understand the concept in order to create a meaningful bug, and debugging gives them a chance to build creativity, resilience, and problem-solving skills in a low-pressure way.
By going through this process themselves, teachers can better support students when bugs appear. Instead of panicking or immediately asking for the answer, students can be encouraged to slow down, identify the intention of the project, determine where it goes wrong, and work through the debugging process step by step.
Here are the slides we used in the workshop:
Structured Debugging Strategies with VEX V5 slides:
V5 Debugging.pdf (1.8 MB)
Additional resources:
- VEX Library: https://kb.vex.com
- VEXcode API Reference: https://api.vex.com
- Debugging by Design Paper: https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10309414
Hope these resources help you bring structured debugging strategies back to your VEX V5 students!
