Discussion about a long running project. Research seminar presented at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK 20/1/2021

1. PROBLEM-SOLVING
AND PROGRAMMING –
THE WILDERNESS
YEARS
SCOTT TURNER
20TH JANUARY 2021

2. I HAVE BEEN LUCKY – WORKING WITH GOOD
PEOPLE
• Dr Gary Hill – main collaborator
• Dr Jon Adams
• Prof. Phil Picton
• Prof. Stefan Kaczmarczyk
• Dr Paul Demian – indirectly

3. THE TWO STARTING QUESTIONS?
Should problem-solving be taught first and developed along with developing
programming skills?
Would robots help?

4. PROBLEM-SOLVING & PROGRAMMING
• We created a new module (around 2005)
• First 8 weeks problem-solving starting off purely problem-solving and then gradually
introduced more Java Programming
• First assignment used LEGO RCX a collection of small problems showing a design
(Pseudocode or flowchart); code; testing plan; discussion and conclusions
• Remaining 16 weeks Java programming emphasis on graphically seeing the problem
• Second assignment replicate some of the activities in a GUI.
• Turner and Hill (2007) Robots in Problem-solving and Programming
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/323986888.pdf

5. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
• Engineering team started to collaborate and spun off ideas
• Problem-solving and creativity became the focus
• Adams and Turner (2008) Problem solving and creativity for undergraduate engineers: process or product? International Conference on
Innovation, Good Practice and Research in Engineering Education (EE2008)
• Adams, Turner, Kaczmarczyk, Picton, Demian (2008)Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Engineers: findings of an action
research project involving robots International Conference on Engineering Education ICEE

6. FUNDING
• Subject Centres for Computing and Engineering – now these two are part of the
HEA.
• Microsoft sponsored fund administered through the Computing and Information
sciences Subject Centre
• So in all we probably found £10 000
• Further funding of £1000 from an internal teaching innovation - more robots

7. PROBLEM-SOLVING AND PROGRAMMING –
LESSONS AND CHANGES
• Students like the robots – but there was never enough!
• Physical and Visual Nature when down well
• So we needed to find a way that didn’t need the robots for the assignment
• Initially robots only for class exercises and graphical tool for assignment (simulator of
the robot).
• Experimented with Microsoft simulation – but more trouble than it was worth.
• Evolved to using Greenfoot and simulated robot exercises

8. SCOTT TURNER & GARY HILL (2008) ROBOTICS WITHIN THE TEACHING OF PROBLEMSOLVING,
INNOVATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING IN INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCES, 7:1, 108-119,
DOI: 10.11120/ITAL.2008.07010108
HTTPS://WWW.TANDFONLINE.COM/DOI/PDF/10.11120/ITAL.2008.07010108

10. PROBLEM-SOLVING AND PROGRAMMING –
LESSONS AND CHANGES
• The evaluation of the module (funded student intern and from conference
workshop) found a few things
• Students liked and remembered the approach;
• First year students struggled to see the relevance of problem-solving
• As the students progressed there was increased recognition of the value doing
problem-solving in the 1st year.
• From the workshops lots of places had the robots but were seeing them as
something for outreach mostly with a few using them in teaching.

11. DIVIDE BUT MAY BE NOT CONQUER
• Creativity in engineering
• Project-based based learning and Graphics
• Problem-solving and Schools

12. JUNKBOTS

13. IDEA
• Started 2010
• Combining Computing, Engineering and Sustainability through a package of 12
hours of activities:
• Problem-solving activities – what does think outside the box mean? Ant in a
square room.
• Turning ‘junk’ into a moving bot to clear other junk
• Add junk to a LEGO robot to make into a controlled cleaning robot.
• Group work activities on specific Waste management activities.

15. • scores with 1 being poor and 5 excellent of the twenty replies received 100% were rate at
4 (65%)or 5(35%). In all the questions asked, the feedback was in the majority rated three
or above

16. QUOTES FROM ONE SCHOOL
• “it was fun and creative, I learnt quite a bit”
“It let use be creative with our design.”
“it opened my eyes to engineering”
• “...it was cool to know what my carbon footprint is.”
“... made me think about all the waste in the world.”
“[I] now recycle”
• “We liked this activity because it help us work as a team.”
“We really enjoyed ourselves over the last 4 days. We found it very useful.”

17. SECOND SCHOOL

18. A SECOND SCHOOL: BUILDING JUNKBOTS
• "We had the [f]reedom to show the teachers what skills we have" (Student B)
"interesting overall" (Student H)
"...but frustrating because modifications were frequent" (Student J)
"The activity was very fun and creative. We experience lots of difficulties to overcome."
(Student K)
"it was nice have time off timetable once in a while" (Student N)
"I found that building the junk bots has made me some new friends..." (Student T)
"...as we[ we]re able to put any ideas forward to put ideas forward to create our own
creation" (Student V)

19. SECOND SCHOOL: PROGRAMMING
• "Didn't get much of a go on this one" (Students D, E)
"this was good however I didn't get to to do a lot" (Student F)
"Really enjoyed it" (Student G)
"It was really good and the amount I have learnt … is incredible" (Student J)
"This activity was fun but very frustrating if the program wasn't going well"
(Student L)
"It was cool because we could program them" (Student Q)
"It was good being the programmer" (student R)

20. SECOND SCHOOL: WASTE MANAGEMENT
• "Lots of information which was useful..."(Student B)
"Very informative but could have been a bit more fun" (Student I)
"I learnt a lot and calculating my carbon footprint was great" (Student J)
"This was different and you found out facts" (Student P)
"I learnt about [Eco] stuff" (Student S)
"I found the waste management activity helpf[ul] because it showed me the truth of what we
could do to help the earth" (Student T)
"I liked the presentation we were given...interesting facts which we will remember a long time"
(Student V)
"I learnt a lot from this. I enjoyed planning a campaign and the statistics were revealing"
(Student W)

21. OVERALL FEEDBACK
• "The whole project was really fun and I enjoyed it lots and I liked making the robots the most"
(Student A)
• "The project as a whole was very fun and I learnt many different skills." (Student C)
• "It was fun because I learnt about carbon emissions and the stuff you need to do the robot"
(Student M)
• "Overall it was very fun yet informative" (Student R)
• "The junkbots project was great! It was a great way to teach us more about science,
technology, engineering and maths. I also think it improved our problem solving skills. "
(Student W)

22. JUNKBOTS

23. FEEDBACK FROM A TEACHER
• "I do feel embedding some sort of diary/journal adds a focus and allows every one to
reflect on what they have done."

24. SUMMARY OF IT…
• For the initial funded further school were involved.
• Blog that is still continuing was produced: https://junkbots.blogspot.com/
• Outcome is the schools asked about the junkbot building activities and some of the
programming.
• Eggbot (more later on that)
• Junkbot ideas got used in two Codeclubs and one STEMClub
• Gave talks to small groups of Code Club volunteers East England and East Midlands
on this.

25. NOT IN ISOLATION
• During this time there have been some big shifts.
• Computational Thinking is now a thing…Jeannette Wing https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/research/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Jeannette_Wing.pdf
• National Curriculum Changed in 2014 ICT and Computing are not the same thing
• Two Royal Society Reports https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/computing-education/
• Katharine Childs work on Physical Computing https://blog.teachcomputing.org/what-physical-
computing-devices-are-teachers-using-at-key-stage-2/ and
https://computationx.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/i-got-by-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends-how-
i-completed-my-masters-degree/
• Computing at Schools (CAS), #caschat and Teaching Computing; Code Clubs, CodeDojos and
a variety of coding competitions, RaspberryPi foundation all came along

26. FINALLY EGGBOT AND OTHER JUNKBOTS
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRlntdmdQRo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idYae4Bmkh0
• Crumble Eggbot https://medium.com/@scottturneruon/crumble-junk-eggbot-
db0a1d02595f