HelloArduBot: A DSL For Teaching Programming To Incoming Students With Open-source Robotic (OSR) Projects
Gustavo Henrique Beltrani Slomski, Adair José Rohling, Paulo Junior Varela, Michel Albonico · 2022
Block-based languages have been used as a facilitator to teach programming to newcomer and end-user programming students. Another alternative is to abstract the programming domain by using educational robots. Such approaches face some challenges. Block-based languages are far different than conventional programming languages, resulting in an abrupt transition between the two paradigms. On the other hand, commercial educational robots are limited to predesigned projects, which bounds students’ creativity. In this work, we propose an intermediate language (between blocks and traditional language that focuses on Arduino, allowing a wide range and student-designed projects. Preliminary results show that our language is simpler than the native Arduino language and that it would be a preferred alternative for beginner students of a computer science undergraduate course.