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Mastering programming and software engineering is a challenge that
requires effort on the part of students. Too often, students are
deterred in this effort by the long time they must spend learning
fundamental concepts and language syntax before they ever have the
experience of creating anything that seems like a real application. As a
consequence, many students lose interest who might do very well if given
the chance to feel really engaged in the task of creating a meaningful
application earlier in their training. As a further consequence, many
faculty work very hard searching for assignments and projects that are
at once both sufficiently engaging and sufficiently accessible to allow
them to add excitement and satisfaction to what can otherwise seem like
a dull and uninteresting exercise.
Asked about types of programming activities to which students respond
well, experienced professors consistently mention games and robots. No
other areas of programming rival these for their ability to interest
students or give them the immediate feeling of creating real software
that does meaningful things. At the same time, games and robots can
offer a means to address some very advanced and sophisticated topics
such as simulation or artificial intelligence.
The problem with games and robots, however, has been the cost and
complexity of producing the necessary building blocks that faculty can
use to create assignments. Faculty seldom have the time or resources to
create a suitable game engine, for example, or to assemble a suitable
robotic device that is both powerful and easy to program. While there
have been efforts—both commercial and otherwise—to create suitable tools
for faculty to create curriculum around games and robots, the true
potential of these remains largely untapped.
Our initiative around emerging robotics and gaming in curriculum is
focused on identifying and developing vehicles for innovative curriculum
and teaching with application across a variety of topics and
disciplines. By partnering with faculty who are domain experts in
robotics and games as well as teaching, our goal is to foster creation
of state-of-the-art curriculum and, where appropriate, to apply and
extend our own technologies (for embedded devices, for example) to bring
to the academic marketplace new platforms upon which compelling
computing curriculum can be based.
This initiative is managed by John Nordlinger.
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