Teaching Programming Using the Karel the Robot Paradigm Realized with a Conventional Language

Abstract

An excellent method for introducing students to computer programming was described by Richard E. Pattis in his book Karel the Robot. By initially limiting the student’s language repertoire to easily grasped imperative commands whose actions are visually displayed, the Karel approach quickly and eortlessly introduces the student to such concepts as procedures and the major control structures. However, some who have used the technique as a \quick-start introduction to programming have noted some problems in the transition from using the Karel language to the conventional language used for the rest of the course (e.g. Pascal). By embedding the Karel programming paradigm in a conventional language, we have been able to eliminate these transition problems while retaining the pedagogical merits and spirit of Karel. This paper provides a brief review of the Karel the Robot programming paradigm, considers the transition problems, describes our novel use of Karel in a conventional language, and informally presents the results of using our version of Karel.