My colleague in the computer science program at Bard, Sven Anderson, is teaching our introductory computing class. The course teaches object-oriented programming using the IPRE robot platform and python. And although robots are error-prone with their noisy sensors and motors, eat batteries, and make it difficult to grade student programs, few pedagogical approaches to CS1 can provoke the following reaction:
Photo courtesy of Sven Anderson.
Any strong reaction is good, I guess?
I think so, especially as we aren’t so concerned with teaching Labradors.
A robotic demonstration of the fight or flight (or, in this case, freeze) response