Robo rally - programming unplugged?

[Tim Bell]

I've recently been trying out a board game called "Roborally", which seems
to be an engaging and entertaining game that exercises computational
thinking skills, including elementary programming ideas. It revolves around
choosing 5 moves (such as forward, back, left turn), and then having each
game piece take the moves one at a time. Success hinges on visualising in
advance what the moves will do (that's the programming element); but there
are complications, like landing on a square that makes the piece move
(that's predictable), and bumping into other pieces (not predictable!)

It's not a new game - it first came out in 1994:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roborally

It's aimed at ages 12 and up, and seems to be a lot of fun.

To buy the game you can go to Amazon.com and search for "roborally"

It's also available online, with essentially the same rules, via:
www.gametableonline.com/

Let us know if you have any experience with it!

Cheers,
Tim Bell

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[Thomas Cortina]

I've used this with teachers in my CS4HS workshops, and they LOVE it.
Teaches algorithmic thinking, but having the other robots there to shoot
at you or knock you into a pit makes it a lot more challenging.

There is an online version of this called Bots N Scouts that I've used
in my intro programming courses to introduce algorithmic thinking.
Again, they love it.

Lately, I've been using LightBot (version 2) which is an online game
that teaches programming ideas, similar to RoboRally but not as
destructive, and it includes the ability to write subprograms and use
recursion!

-Tom

[Tim Bell]

Tim wrote:

>> I've recently been trying out a board game called "Roborally", which seems
>> to be an engaging and entertaining game that exercises computational
>> thinking skills, including elementary programming ideas.

Tom replied:

> I've used this with teachers in my CS4HS workshops, and they LOVE it.

How much time would you allow for it in a workshop? I'm guessing it would
take about an hour to learn the rules and get to the point of playing it
confidently?

cheers,
tim

[Thomas Cortina]

On 3/22/2012 12:33 PM, Tim Bell wrote:
> Tim wrote:
>
>>> I've recently been trying out a board game called "Roborally", which seems
>>> to be an engaging and entertaining game that exercises computational
>>> thinking skills, including elementary programming ideas.
> Tom replied:
>
>> I've used this with teachers in my CS4HS workshops, and they LOVE it.
> How much time would you allow for it in a workshop? I'm guessing it would
> take about an hour to learn the rules and get to the point of playing it
> confidently?
>
> cheers,
> tim
>

I think I went over the rules in about 45 minutes and then they started
to play for about 2 hours.
We did this after dinner so people could cut out when they wanted to,
and most stayed and didn't
want to leave. During the first 15 minutes or so, I walked around to
answer rule questions. Once
they got their robots running a few rounds, I sat back and watched them
take off.

-Tom

[Tim Bell]

Nice... doing it after dinner sounds like a key idea. It's an engaging game!

Slightly off topic, but we had a CS4HS teacher workshop where we brought in
"Digital improv" actors after dinner - I'm not sure if it's common overseas,
but the do improv comedy sketches based on input from the audience ("Whose
line is it anyway" is the TV show that made this popular). The difference
with digital improv is that they got the input from Google (e.g. google the
name of a person in the audience, and use whatever comes up), Facebook (get
a photo from an audience members facebook page and act out the scene), and
SMS (text) messages (people texted in lines for the actors to incorporate,
while they were acting). It really got people thinking, and was a lot of
fun.

I'm looking for something different for next year; Roborally may be the
answer!

I heard of someone who did a life-sized version. I didn't get the whole
story, but I think the robots were acted out by students. Sounds dangerous
:-)

cheers,
tim

[Errol Thompson]

I was talking with a student today about games for teaching computing
concepts. I have one called Ricochet Robots that can be used for teaching
path finding algorithms. I don't teach AI so haven't used it much.

Shalom,
Errol

E-mail kiwiet (at) thompsonz.net
Windows Live: kiwiet (at) computer.org
Skype: kiwielt

Blog: http://kiwi-et.blogspot.com/
http://errolmarilyn.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.thompsonz.net/

Phone: +44 (121) 6037782
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Birmingham, B29 4JJ

[Tim Bell]

Nice! It seems to be more in the direction of a puzzle than a programming
analogy, but if you like RoboRally, you'll probably like Ricochet Robots!
There's more info at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_Robot
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/51/ricochet-robots

There's an online version here:
http://www.ricochetrobot.com/

tim