From Mad Libs to Tic Tac Toe: Using Robots and Game Programming as a Theme in an Introduction to Programming Course for Non-Majors

Computer Science has a bad reputation among non-CS majors. This paper describes three assignments from a gentle introduction to programming course for non-majors that uses robots and simple game programming as a hook to get students interested in the subject. In each of the assignments presented, what might be considered a trivial twist to an instructor was a key factor in making an otherwise standard project into something that is more engaging.