1. Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1 Personal Robots for CS1 Deepak Kumar Bryn Mawr College

2. Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1 IPRE Institute for Personal Robots in Education Goals: To explore the use of personal robots People: Douglas Blank, Deepak Kumar (BMC), Tucker Balch, Mark Guzdial (GaTech), Stewart Tansley (MSR)

3. Deepak Kumar Key Motivators… Introductory computing courses serve as a gateway into the CS curriculum. Should provide interesting and diverse range of examples and exercises. Alignment of course content to student interests to increase engagement can have a positive impact on students choosing to enter computing as a major in college. Most tasks should be attainable and provide a basis for supportive and positive feedback to students. Promising Practices in CS1

4. Deepak Kumar Additional Motivators… Use a personal robot Let the needs of the curriculum drive the design of the robot, software, and text Use tools that are easy to use, scale with experience Create an accessible, engaging environment for new, diverse population of students Computer Science ≠ programming Make computing a social activity Make computing a medium for creativity Performances vs. competitions Promising Practices in CS1

5. A Personal Robot Kit Color camera 3 Light sensors 2 IR proximity sensors 2 Line sensors Stall sensor Speaker 3 LEDs 2 motors Bluetooth wireless Pen port Myro Python Module Promising Practices in CS1 Deepak Kumar

6. Myro: Features Simple, easy to use API even for non- programmers. Seamlessly integrated with standard Python. Plans to work with MSRS and.NET (will support multiple languages). Design driven by curricular goals. See: Kumar et al. Engaging Computing Students with AI and Robotics, Forthcoming in Spring 2008. Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

7. Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1 “Hello World” # Hello World from myro import * speak(“Hello, World!”)

8. CS1:Course Contents Chapter 1 The World of Robots Chapter 2 Robots: Personal or Otherwise Chapter 3 Building Brains Chapter 4 Sensing the World Chapter 5 Making Decisions Chapter 6 Behaviors Chapter 7 Control Paradigms Chapter 8 Making Music Chapter 9 Communication Chapter 10 Artificial Intelligence Chapter 11 Computing & Computation Chapter 12 Applications of Robots Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

9. Programming as a social activity Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

10. Myro: Example # Avoiding Obstacles from myro import * initialize(ask(“What port?”)) # program settings... cruiseSpeed = 0.6 turnSpeed = 0.5 def main(): while True: Left, Right = getObstacles() if Left: turnRight(turnSpeed) elif Right: turnLeft(turnSpeed) else: forward(cruiseSpeed) Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

11. A CS1 Assignment: Exploring a Pyramid Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

12. Learned CS concepts through robots Robots made learning experience more hands-on, tangible, and exciting Most frustrating parts were dealing with robot hardware inconsistencies Viewed CS as a type of logic and problem solving; requiring patience & thought Discovered that CS and robots are applicable to the real world Some Results… Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

13. Another CS1 Assignment… Corral Exiting/Escape Imagine a corral (an enclosed area with maze like partitions and an entrance) with a light source at the entrance (as shown in the figure to the right). Given the robot's position, can we design a behavior that will enable the robot to exit the corral? Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

14. Ability to draw Ability to take pictures Ability to make music/tones Ability to play sounds and talk Ability to express Ability for robot interaction Ability to have a web presence Some Directions… Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1

15. Deepak Kumar Comments? For more information visit: www.roboteducation.org

16. Deepak Kumar Promising Practices in CS1