Three fun assignments for an Artificial Intelligence class

Abstract

Three creative assignments are discussed that are geared toward an undergraduate Artificial Intelligence curriculum. The modified Turing Test project has students conversing with online chat bots, as well as with other classmates. All conversations are posted on the web and classified as to who the was speaking to, another human or a computer. The sixteen puzzle project requires students to compare the performance of two different heuristics used in solving the sixteen puzzle problem. The final assignment uses LEGO( handy-board based robots to teach the concepts of neural networks.