Deepak KumarPromising Practices in CS1

Personal Robots for

CS1

Deepak KumarBryn Mawr

College

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)

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

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

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

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

Deepak Kumar

Promising Practices in

CS1

“Hello World”

# Hello World

from myro import *

speak(“Hello, World!”)

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

Programming as a social activity

Deepak Kumar

Promising Practices in

CS1

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

A CS1 Assignment: Exploring a Pyramid

Deepak Kumar

Promising Practices in

CS1

• 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

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

• 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

Promising Practices in

CS1

Deepak Kumar

Comments?

For more information visit: www.roboteducation.org

Deepak Kumar

Promising Practices in

CS1