1. Compiler Integration into Computer Science Learning Games Amanda Chaffin katla@wulfkub.com Advisor: Dr. Tiffany Barnes tbarnes2@uncc.edu

2. What is Game2Learn? Games  Senior Projects & Master’s Thesis  Challenging, creative, innovative  RPGs and puzzle games Students  Undergraduates  Veteran Mentors (Ph. D. & Masters) Learning  Computing & programming concepts  Learning tools 2 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

3. Hypothesis  Students who play a learning game where  They can write and compile code inside the game  Will effectively learn computing concepts  Students who make a learning game where other students write code will  Learn the coding concepts better  Be able to teach the concepts 3 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

4. Game Concept re·cur·sion (rĭ-kûr'zhən) –noun Mathematics, Computers See recursion 4 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

5. EleMental: The Recurrence 5 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

6. Video 6 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015 Video (Thanks to YouTube for hosting)

7. Code Interface – Close Up 7 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

8. Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015 8 Pilot Study Design  Pilot Study  Current CS 2214 and 2215 students recruited via the professor  Study consists of –  Demographic survey & pre-test  Play game  Post test & survey  Data logged by game and automatically (non secure) FTPed

9. 9 Study Demographics  16 participants  1 non computing major  1 freshman, 1 sophomore, 10 juniors, 3 seniors, and 1 post Baccalaureate  13 men, 3 women  5 casual gamers, 4 hardcore, 7 neither Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

10. Pre & Post Test MAIN getProduct() 1) getProduct(3) 2) getProduct() 3) getProduct() 4) result = 5) result = 2 6) result = public int getProduct(int num) { int result; if (num == 1) { result = 1; } else { result = num * getProduct(num - 1); } return result; } 1.What is the value passed to getProduct() in step 2? Answer = 2 2.What is the value of 'result' at step 6? Answer = 6 1.What is the value passed to getProduct() in step 2? 2. What is the value of 'result' at step 6? Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015 10

11. 11 Pre to Posttest Learning Gains Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

12. Favorite Aspects of EleMental? 12 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

13. Traditional Vs. Game Assignments 13 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

14. Study Quotes “The fact that I write my own code to make the game work.” “ Gaming assignments are better because a lot of people enter computer science wanting to do things like gaming, and are disappointed because all they get to do in the first few assignments is write code to calculate tax on different stuff.” “I liked the whole experience of walking through the paths and then typing the code and then doing it again for repetition.” “Finding C# is very similar to Java.” 14 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

15. 15 What the Developers Learned  Code concepts – abstraction, recursion, Forms, polymorphism, CodeDom, Compilers  Agile development – rapid iterations through software cycle  Good code no substitute for proper design!  Parsing is HARD! Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

16. Future Study  Hypothesis – students who play EleMental: The Recurrence with access to the in game compiler will show significantly higher learning gains than a comparison group that plays without the compiler.  Crossover study – Half play the game with compiler Half play without Swap 16 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

17. Future Engine Work  Level Creation currently at 5 hours for 2 people  Database  Address Engine Concerns  Direction Indicators  Reconnect XP to HUD  Bug Fixes  Expansions into other data structures  Heaps  Lists  Stacks 17 Chaffin - G2L platform October 6, 2015

18. Thank You! Amanda Chaffin & Dr. Tiffany Barnes katla@wulfkub.com unc Charlotte This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation Grants No. CNS-0552631 and CNS-0540523, IIS-0757521, and the UNC Charlotte Diversity in Information Technology Institute.

19. Engine Components

20. Chaffin - G2L platform October 29, 2008 20 CompilerControls Architecture

21. Challenge Objects Flow

22. Event System Architecture Chaffin - G2L platform October 29, 2008 22

23. Events : XML Settings  Each Event has  TypeID  Parameters  Triggers

24. HUD Flow Chaffin - G2L platform October 29, 2008 24