I was such a CS undergrad working in a lab once upon a time. I don't think you really want that because the undergrad will probably only be working for like 4-15hr/week potentially for only a single semester. For a summer position, sure it's 40hr/week but still only for about 10-15 weeks.
And still, you're getting a generic CS undergrad's caliber of work and responsibility which I would say on average is not great. They might not be as familiar with version control, best practices, etc. and could just end up writing code just as bad as the scientists.
I think if hiring a team you would need at least one somewhat experienced full-time software engineer to act as team lead/PM for the other developers, whether fulltime or students.
Yeah, picking up undergrads (or even grad students) from the CS department is not a surefire way to end up code that follows best practices, is well maintained/documented, etc. and I'd probably argue if your team leader doesn't have that experience, you're more likely to end up with something that doesn't follow great practices (especially with regards to any sort of test suite).
All the replys about undergrad quality are correct. I stand by my statement though: we need to figure out how to solve this problem and research is sorely lacking.
And still, you're getting a generic CS undergrad's caliber of work and responsibility which I would say on average is not great. They might not be as familiar with version control, best practices, etc. and could just end up writing code just as bad as the scientists.
I think if hiring a team you would need at least one somewhat experienced full-time software engineer to act as team lead/PM for the other developers, whether fulltime or students.