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UID:pretalx-entry-LN93RP@2026.asiabsdcon.org
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DESCRIPTION:Over the past few years\, I have observed that the misuse of AI
  in education for cheating purposes has created significant challenges in 
 assessing students' authentic contributions. Another issue I identified is
  that university labs rarely teach the kind of problem-solving skills that
  are relevant in real-world scenarios — the kinds of problems graduates 
 will face in their professional lives\, such as fixing production issues. 
 Traditional assignments often lacked real-world relevance and\, because th
 ey could easily be solved with AI assistance\, left students unprepared fo
 r professional challenges.\n\nTo address these shortcomings\, I developed 
 — as part of my master’s thesis at the University of Applied Sciences\
 , Darmstadt\, Germany — a new teaching framework that leverages Chaos En
 gineering and Gamification to modernize Unix education on FreeBSD. With my
  new system\, instructors can simulate realistic problems that students mu
 st solve using system administrator permissions. I also designed the frame
 work to make it difficult for participants to “cheat” using AI\, and I
  evaluated its effectiveness through a controlled test with a group of stu
 dents.\n\nIn my presentation\, I introduce this “Chaos Education System
 ”\, which I tested in the Unix for Software Developers course at the uni
 versity. The name is inspired by the concept of chaos monkey systems\, whi
 ch intentionally “wreak havoc” on production systems to improve their 
 resiliency and train system administrators to diagnose and repair failures
 . My approach enables instructors to inject intentional faults (error scen
 arios) into student-managed FreeBSD jails. The students must then identify
 \, resolve\, and prevent these issues from recurring using standard system
  administration tools — including full root permissions.\n\nTo increase 
 student motivation and simulate real-world “production pressure\,” I i
 mplemented a global highscore list as a gamification element. Each time an
  issue is solved\, the system awards points based on elapsed time and an i
 nstructor-defined difficulty bonus. After each exercise\, a post-mortem gr
 oup discussion allows students to share their solution approaches\, compar
 e methodologies\, and reflect on lessons learned. Through this process\, s
 tudents gain valuable practical skills such as troubleshooting\, system re
 covery\, and proactive system management — all within a realistic and dy
 namic environment that traditional “one-size-fits-all” assignments fai
 l to provide.\n\nI built the entire system using BSD-licensed open-source 
 components\, including FreeBSD\, pf\, VNET\, Bastille jails\, and template
 s. Shell scripts act as the glue\, connecting these technologies and imple
 menting the logic for the chaos monkey framework. I tested the prototype w
 ith two groups of 16 students each in January 2025. One group was allowed 
 to use ChatGPT during the exercises to assess whether AI assistance improv
 ed their performance (if at all). Insights from this testing were used to 
 refine and enhance the system further.\n\nIn my talk\, I will present the 
 concept and implementation of the Chaos Education System\, demonstrate its
  functionality\, and discuss potential future developments. FreeBSD has pr
 oven to be an outstanding foundation for this project due to its modularit
 y\, open-source availability\, low resource consumption\, and excellent do
 cumentation. I believe the system can be expanded beyond academic use — 
 for example\, in corporate training or workshop-style events. It allows in
 structors or trainers to easily create and deploy custom scenarios\, scali
 ng efficiently to multiple parallel users thanks to the lightweight nature
  of FreeBSD jails.\n\nAudience: This project is aimed at educators\, train
 ers\, and system administrators interested in modernizing Unix/Linux educa
 tion through hands-on\, interactive methods. Managers and team leads may a
 lso find the system useful for training employees through customized scena
 rios that replicate their own production environments.
DTSTAMP:20260818T170315Z
LOCATION:Room A
SUMMARY:Enhancing Teaching Methods in FreeBSD Education through Chaos Engin
 eering and Gamification - Andreas Kirchner
URL:https://2026.asiabsdcon.org/entry/talk/LN93RP/
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