Incorporation Of A 3 D Interactive Graphics Programming Language Into An Introductory Engineering Course

Abstract

Details of introduction of a 3D interactive graphics programming language (i.e., Alice) into an introductory engineering course (called “Engineering Exploration”) at Virginia Tech are presented. The Alice system, provided freely (www.alice.org) as a public service by Carnegie Mellon University, provides a completely new approach to learning programming concepts. This is the FIRST large scale deployment of Alice (1260 engineering freshmen learnt it in fall 2004) in an introductory engineering course. One particularly challenging aspect of this was implementing mathematics into the Alice problem specifications. Two examples of simulating the Solar System and projectile motion of an object using Alice are briefly discussed. Qualitative analysis of instructor and student experiences are discussed along with quantitative survey results to measure the relative success of this initial endeavor.

Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering (COE) is the sixth largest US engineering program in terms of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 20021. All freshman engineering students at Virginia Tech undergo a common first year General Engineering (GE) curriculum developed by the Department of Engineering Education (EngE). The GE curriculum is undergoing major changes primarily due to two reasons: i) Recent addition of Computer Science(CS) into the COE, ii) More emphasis on engineering education research targeted at improving engineering pedagogy in the COE.

This paper will present the details of changes made to one of the introductory engineering courses (called “Engineering Exploration” or EngE 1024) in GE curriculum with particular reference to programming instruction, which constitutes about one-third of the course. In consultation with faculty members from CS and other engineering departments, the EngE faculty decided to introduce an object-oriented programming language called Alice into EngE 1024.

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education