Teaching Functional Patterns through Robotic Applications
Abstract
We present our approach to teaching functional programming to First Year Computer Science students at Middlesex University through projects in robotics. A holistic approach is taken to the curriculum, emphasising the connections between different subject areas. A key part of the students' learning is through practical projects that draw upon and integrate the taught material. To support these, we developed the Middlesex Robotic plaTfOrm (MIRTO), an open-source platform built using Raspberry Pi, Arduino, HUB-ee wheels and running Racket (a LISP dialect). In this paper we present the motivations for our choices and explain how a number of concepts of functional programming may be employed when programming robotic applications. We present some students' work with robotics projects: we consider the use of robotics projects to have been a success, both for their value in reinforcing students' understanding of programming concepts and for their value in motivating the students.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1611.09470,
title = {Teaching Functional Patterns through Robotic Applications},
author = {J. Boender and E. Currie and M. Loomes and G. Primiero and F. Raimondi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.09470},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
In Proceedings TFPIE 2015/6, arXiv:1611.08651