Teaching CS1 with karel the robot in Java

  • Authors:

  • Byron Weber Becker

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Most current Java textbooks for CS1 (and thus most current courses) begin either with fundamentals from the procedural paradigm (assignment, iteration, selection) or with a brief introduction to using objects followed quickly with writing objects. We have found a third way to be most satisfying for both teachers and students: using interesting predefined classes to introduce the fundamentals of object-oriented programming (object instantiation, method calls, inheritance) followed quickly by the traditional fundamentals of iteration and selection, also taught using the same predefined classes.Karel the Robot, developed by Richard Pattis [6] and well-known to many computer science educators, has aged gracefully and is a vital part of our CS1 curriculum. This paper explains how Karel may be used and the advantages of doing so.