Arm Developer Labs: Shaping computing curricula with industry software challenges
The latest collaboration between Arm and Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge challenged students to develop industry-relevant projects – and left room for innovations of their own
If you find it hard to keep pace with rapid change in your work, consider those teaching software engineering. Course content must stay relevant to industry. Computer science research evolves constantly and new algorithms reshape the design of future hardware. Keeping students at the cutting edge can be a challenge.
The team at Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge addresses this challenge through the Professional Experience Computing Project 1 module. The module is a masters-level offering. The school delivers the course in collaboration with Arm Developer Labs. This community of practice empowers developers to explore, prototype, and share projects. It also showcases the real-world advantages of the Arm ecosystem.
Visualizing trends
To align the course with industry needs, Arm provided ARU with a range of project themes. This year’s cohort includes MSc Computer Science and MSc Artificial Intelligence students. They chose a project based around the practice of web scraping.
The project helps Arm identify prominent figures in different domains. It also helps Arm understand the funding ecosystem, both from government-backed research and industrial sponsors. This insight supports more data-driven decisions.
Web scraping is the automated extraction of data from websites. The process fetches the website HTML code and parses the data to find specific relevant information. It then stores it into a database, where it can be analyzed and its value extracted.
These projects are deeply engaging and provide students with rich opportunities to explore real-world computing challenges – all while developing transferrable skills that are sought in industry.”
The students were tasked with designing a dashboard that tracks the progression of computer science papers over time. They were challenged to deliver a web scraping tool that could pull keywords from academic papers found in academic search engines, such as Google Scholar, BASE, Core, and Science.gov. The tool stores the data in a database and displays it in a web browser. Users can then visualize research trends over time.
Rich opportunities
Responsibility for the module lies with Partha De, a senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science at ARU Cambridge. Partha joined the school in February 2025. When he joined the Arm Developer Labs projects, he quickly saw the value of the collaboration.
“I quickly realized these projects are deeply engaging and provide students with rich opportunities to explore real-world computing challenges,” he says, “all while developing transferrable skills that are very much sought in industry.”
At the start of the module, De organized the students into groups of seven. Each with a group leader. They had 10 weeks to code the solution.
Web scraping can be a challenging task. Millions of academic papers are published online in computer science alone. In addition to learning web scraping, the students used their experience with application programming interfaces and data analysis.
“It’s been inspiring to see the students not only understand the problem but also propose entirely new approaches to solve it.”
De was struck by the innovative ideas the young programmers introduced while working to the Developer Labs brief.
“Initially, the project appeared to be focused mainly on web scraping,” he says. “But as the students began exploring the topic, they integrated large language models to analyse and summarise research trends, a more efficient method for web scraping to handle large volumes of academic data.”
The students were full of praise for the course. The introduction of AI models proved key to the experience. The module convers AI integration, system design, and data architecture. It strengthened their research and decision-making skills. It also expanded their technical knowledge and practical expertise in the most up-to-date methodology possible.
“It’s been inspiring to see the students not only understand the problem but also propose entirely new approaches to solve it,” says De. “This shows independent thinking, technical growth, and a strong alignment with real industry practice.”
Hands-on support
ARU and Arm have maintained a strong partnership for many years. Arm collaborates with the university on major student undergraduate and postgraduate projects. It also supports undergraduate student placements and internships, part-time distance learning postgraduate courses, and PhD research.
For the Professional Experience Computing Project 1 module, Arm did more than suggest ideas for student projects. Arm also provided what De describes as “exceptionally well-designed tutorial materials, which guide students through the entire project lifecycle, from understanding the problem, to implementation, testing, and reflection”.
“Seeing students engage directly with Arm tools and real development workflows is encouraging. It gives them a strong foundation and prepares them effectively for future research or industry roles.”
Arm provides valuable guidance and feedback to support student growth.
“We met regularly with Arm engineers and shared our project repository for review and guidance, says De. “During the students’ project demonstrations, Arm engineers attended the sessions and provided constructive feedback and technical insights. This ongoing interaction has created a positive and supportive workflow. The overall experience has been highly collaborative, effective, and seamless.”
Direct engagement
De completed a PhD at the School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne. He earned his MS from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. De is now a researcher in hardware security. He works on leakage modelling using Arm instruction sets.
He believes that access to a hands-on learning environment like Developer Labs earlier in his career would have greatly accelerated his learning. It would have also helped him gain valuable industry insights sooner.
“This structured and industry-aligned approach supports students in developing both technical skills and professional confidence,” he says.
“Seeing students engage directly with Arm tools and real development workflows is encouraging. It gives them a strong foundation and prepares them effectively for future research or industry roles in a way that is both practical and deeply relevant.”
“Real-life stuff”
Strong industry links are essential as students move from academic theory to real-world application. Projects based on real industry practices help students understand how technical knowledge is used in professional contexts. This experience encourages strategic and solution-oriented thinking in an industry-like environment.
“This project is real-life stuff,” says De. “The students essentially become full stack developers, skilled in both client-side UI and back-end server-side logic and databases. They're learning new things every day. And they are now placement-ready, in terms of already having proper experience of what industry is doing.”
These experiences enhance employability as students develop technical proficiency and essential soft skills like communication, teamwork, and adaptability. By gaining exposure to real industry workflows and expectations, they also get a stronger sense of professional awareness and confidence. This preparation equips them to move seamlessly into the workplace.
“Students have to go to jobs, so they have to be work-ready,” says De. “The Arm connection allowed these students to apply cutting-edge tools and methodologies, gaining insights that would be difficult to achieve through academic study alone.”
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