We'd like to pick your brain. The goal of the institute is to try to make a shrink-wrapped robot so that every student will have their own, it will be more advanced than the typical Lego-based robot, and yet inexpensive. The intro course will be for majors, but not be just the same ol thing. If you have suggestions, please feel free to drop us a note over at http://www.roboteducation.org/ Thanks!
Penguin,
Good points. First, it is exactly this type of student involvement that will help change CS.
Before you completely throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, consider these points:
1. This CS1 isn't aimed at you (or others that are interested in CS). It is aimed at those that aren't. The idea is to attract them into the field.
2. The robot will be designed to be as sturdy as an ipod.
3. How do you that the curricular materials won't be a good intro? Maybe a better concern is: "how will we work mathy things into the course?"
You just have to remember that we are trying to attract the anti-slashdot student. What is she looking for in an intro course? Help us figure that out at our blog: http://blog.roboteducation.org/
Note to self: when talking to the press, don't use complicated technical jargon, like "debugging":)
I think what I actually said was "rather than debug a program to make it give the right answer, the students must debug the program to make the robot behave the way they want it to."
I think many of you will actually like the hardware, software, and curriculum that we are designing. Checkout http://www.roboteducation.org/ and http://pyrorobotics.org/ The new version of the software will be based on Pyro, Python Robotics. We think of the hardware as something like an ipod on wheels. The software is also being developed with an open source license. This project is not what many of you guess it might be.
The CS1 and CS2 that we are developing won't be watered down, but also won't be just the standard "intro to programming, using robots". It's a complete rethinking of the intro courses.
Slashdot Mirror
Prof Phreak,
We'd like to pick your brain. The goal of the institute is to try to make a shrink-wrapped robot so that every student will have their own, it will be more advanced than the typical Lego-based robot, and yet inexpensive. The intro course will be for majors, but not be just the same ol thing. If you have suggestions, please feel free to drop us a note over at http://www.roboteducation.org/ Thanks!
Penguin, Good points. First, it is exactly this type of student involvement that will help change CS. Before you completely throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, consider these points: 1. This CS1 isn't aimed at you (or others that are interested in CS). It is aimed at those that aren't. The idea is to attract them into the field. 2. The robot will be designed to be as sturdy as an ipod. 3. How do you that the curricular materials won't be a good intro? Maybe a better concern is: "how will we work mathy things into the course?" You just have to remember that we are trying to attract the anti-slashdot student. What is she looking for in an intro course? Help us figure that out at our blog: http://blog.roboteducation.org/
Note to self: when talking to the press, don't use complicated technical jargon, like "debugging" :)
I think what I actually said was "rather than debug a program to make it give the right answer, the students must debug the program to make the robot behave the way they want it to."
I think many of you will actually like the hardware, software, and curriculum that we are designing. Checkout http://www.roboteducation.org/ and http://pyrorobotics.org/ The new version of the software will be based on Pyro, Python Robotics. We think of the hardware as something like an ipod on wheels. The software is also being developed with an open source license. This project is not what many of you guess it might be.
The CS1 and CS2 that we are developing won't be watered down, but also won't be just the standard "intro to programming, using robots". It's a complete rethinking of the intro courses.
-Doug Blank