NMC Online Conference

Reality and Programming Together Jessica D. Bayliss, Ph.D.

Rochester Institute of TechnologyComputer Science Dept.

Course Site: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/rapt

RIT Computer Science Dept.

The Issues

o Enrollment in CS programs is down (by up to 40%!)

o Students may not see the connection between application and the classroom

o How do we attract students? Through offering different application areas for CS1-3.

RIT Computer Science Dept.

RAPT

o Teaching traditional Computer Science Programming with a "games flavor"

o Examples:o Modulus: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cs1/total_war.php

o Game logic: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cs1/morrowwind.php

o Threads: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cs2/Labs/lab06/

o Data Driven Design: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cs2/Labs/lab04/

RIT Computer Science Dept.

RAPT - CS1 Results

o A 10 week pilot summer distance program for no credito Applications: 81 people (40% of the

entering class)o Acceptances: 48o Disappearances: 11 (23%)o Failure to pass fall placement exam to

place into CS2: 3 (8%)

RIT Computer Science Dept.

RAPT Student Experiences

o Students bondedo CS1 students who are always or frequently

intimidated:o Normal CS1 (n=369): 21%o RAPT (n=33): 4%

o General Quote: “The one thing I really like about this course is that it’s programming

focused on video games. Personally, when I first started this program, I thought it was going be average CompSci class, just with like one or two references to video games. Then, probably after the second day, I realized that this program was new and demanding, yet exciting, fun and way different then regular CS classes.”

RIT Computer Science Dept.

CS2

o CS2 in C# during the fallo Quarter long game client project for Unreal

Tournament botso Clips from bots:

o http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/cs2/Unreal1.mpgo http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/cs2/Unreal2.mpgo http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/cs2/Unreal3.mpg