Programmers can draw their shapes in a 2D environment and then use “inflation” tools to produce 3D objects. They can also assign custom or pre-programmed behaviours to these objects to make them move and interact in the gaming grid.
Within a few minutes I created the maze-like game pictured above. Here “the cake isn’t a lie.” To complete and move onto the next maze, you must collect all the cakes on screen.
Prof. Alexander Repenning led the two-decade project, and the initial study has seen both increased interest in computer science and increased comprehension of the concepts native to coding. The study is showing no signs of stopping, either, thanks to a recent $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
“Programming should be easy and exciting,” said Repenning. “But that’s not where we are. The perception of the public is that it’s hard and boring. Our goal is to expose a much larger as well as broader audience to programming by reinventing computer science education in public schools.”
The knowledge gained doesn’t end with games; they can lead to simulations too. For instance, the coding to define the interactions when a car hits Frogger isn’t that much different from when molecules collide in a chemical reaction.
The program has seen growth in the Boulder area at local middle schools, helping kids get interested in computer science – including women and minority groups (who are generally untapped in the computer science business). To that end, Repenning has received another NSF grant for $1.5 million to test how education affects young women trying to learn computer sciences.
For kids or not, though, I can see myself playing around with this thing for at least a few months.
Source CU-Boulder.
Image programmed on AgentCubes.