Virtual Pests Web Site

"Virtual Pests" has been selected for inclusion on the Nifty Assignments site, maintained by Nick Parlante!

 

Welcome to the Virtual Pests web site!

Read about the Project:

"Software Design and Implementation in the Introductory CS Course: JavaScript and Virtual Pests" by Jeffrey L. Popyack, Ali Shokoufandeh, and Paul Zoski, presented at the Fifth Annual Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges: Northeastern Conference (CCSCNE-2000), April 28-9, 2000.

More Information about the Course:

Introduction to Computer Science Course Website, Fall 2002

The Assignments:

Fall 2002: Part I, Part II, Part III, Extra Credit (Java Applet)

Selected Student Work, Fall 2002

Virtual Pest "Starter Kit" based on the example in Parts I-II

More Archives:

Fall 1999: Part I, Part II, Part III

Selected Student Work, Fall 1999

Fall 1998: Part I, Part II

Selected Student Work, Fall 1998

Brief Summary:

This is a three-part assignment given to first-term freshmen in a breadth-oriented "Introduction to Computer Science" course. It is based on the concept of the handheld "virtual pet". Students design and implement web pages using HTML forms for the user interface and JavaScript functions for the behavior that results in a customized "virtual pest".

There is a followup extra-credit assignment, to port the virtual pest to a Java applet.


Why it's Nifty:

  • stresses design first
  • encourages creativity
  • expandable
  • cross platform
  • inexpensive (need a web browser and text editor)
  • underscores importance of programming
  • starter kit provided
  • JavaScript lays the foundation for programming in C++/Java

Abstract from the Paper:

Our introductory computer science course is a breadth-oriented exposure to the computing field offered to students majoring in computer science and mathematics, who have widely disparate prior computing and programming experience. It is not a programming course per se, although programming concepts and techniques play a significant role throughout. A challenge faced by the instructor is to give 'universal assignments' that cover core material, are sufficiently interesting to engage advanced students, yet may also be completed by students with weaker backgrounds. We present a project sequence designed for this purpose based on the concept of the handheld "virtual pet". Students designed and implemented web pages using HTML forms for the user interface and JavaScript functions for the behavior that resulted in their own "virtual pests". These assignments stressed the importance of design before coding.


Extra info about this assignment: