Problem-solving

Two members of the Computing Division of the University of Northampton have contributed a chapter to the book   Software Industry-Oriented Education Practices and Curriculum Development: Experiences and Lessons   edited by  Drs. Matthew Hussey, Xiaofei Xu and Bing Wu.   ISBN:  978-1609607975   IGI Global  to be published later this year. Problems First Gary Hill and Scott Turner ABSTRACT This chapter considers the need to focus initial programming education on  problem-solving , in advance of programming syntax and software design methodology. The main vehicle for this approach is simple Lego based  robots  programmed in  Java , followed by the programming of a graphical representation/simulation to develop programming skills.  P roblem solving is not trivial (Beaumont & Fox, 2003) and is an important skill, central to computing and engineering. An approach wil...

One of the criticism of the robot programming part of the Junkbots project is not everyone necessarily gets a go at the programming. To address this a new feature has been added to the project. There are now two parallel activities   as well as programming a robot; there is a separate programming exercise carried out at the same time which replicates some of the same actions of the robot but this time on screen. Figure: Robot pushing a barrel These exercises are based around the increasngily popular  Greenfoot software ( http://www.greenfoot.org/download/ ) which is free to download and use. This can be put on as many machines as are need enabling more people to have a go at programming. The exercises initially gets participants to set-up the world, place a robot within it and get the robot to move across the screen. Building on the each previous exercise, the complexity increases and includes challenges (such as in the figure) where the robot p...