AP Computer Science Principles

Programs use computational constructs such as loops and predefined functions to break programs up into sections. This makes programs more compact, easier to write, and easier to maintain. In this activity, you will use BOLT's light sensor to learn about conditionals and their components.

Algorithms are the building blocks of programs and incorporating elements of abstraction and decomposition makes writing complex programs easier. In this activity, you will learn about the essential components of algorithms by programming your Sphero robot to dance to a song.  

Finding and fixing errors is an important and ongoing process in any computer science context. This activity will provide you with some strategies to debug your programs and challenge you to find and fix errors in a program running on your Sphero robot. 

The innovation of computer science has transformed how we communicate, process information, and conduct our daily lives. In this activity you will explore the broad impacts of computing innovations and be challenged to think about the opportunities and limitations of computing innovations. 

In this activity, you will build a BOLT animal toss game to play with your friends. In the process, you’ll learn about controlling BOLT’s actions with control blocks, comparators, and onboard sensors. 

This activity introduces you to the basic logic of fundamental programming concepts using pseudocode and flowcharts. While there are many different types of programming languages, understanding how to use pseudocode and flowcharts is fundamental to developing your computational thinking skills. Let's get started! 

Data provides opportunities for identifying trends, making connections, and addressing problems. Programs can be used to process data, which allows users to discover information and create new knowledge. In this activity, you will learn about processing data and program your Sphero robot to provide data for analysis. 

Programs are used to translate data into a representation more easily understood by people. The way a computer represents data internally is different from the way the data are interpreted and displayed for the user. In this activity, you will learn about how computers represent data using binary.

To find specific solutions to generalizable problems, programmers represent and organize data in multiple ways. Within a program, data can be stored in variables. In this lesson, you will learn about the use of variables in programming and create an incrementing variable program with your Sphero robot. 

Programming languages like JavaScript provide types to represent data, which are referenced using variables. Within Sphero Edu, there are four types of variables: Strings, Numbers, Boolean, and Color. In this activity, you will be introduced to these data types and understand how and when they can be used in programming.