Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA

Computer Science

Faculty Advisor: Douglas S. Blank

Student Researchers: Mansi Gupta ('10), Marwa Nur Muhammad ('09), Shikha Prashad ('09) 

Funded by CREU (Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates): Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) and the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC)

September 2007 - May 2008

This project will primarily explore whether the use of robots can attract middle school students to the field of computer science. We will write an interactive program which will allow students to operate a wirelessly remote controlled robot through the use of simple Python commands. This will expose them to basic programming but will not force them to understand the intense syntax involved (which will be built into the program and will be masked from them). The students will engage in small projects which we hope will motivate them to learn the language in order to operate the robot while still maintaining a fun environment. We will survey the students before and after using our program to determine whether it has incited interest in them. We feel this approach will make the students' first encounters with computer science less intimidating and perhaps will encourage them to take courses in high school and college.