Incorporation Of A 3 D Interactive Graphics Programming Language Into An Introductory Engineering Course

Details of introduction of a 3D interactive graphics programming language (i.e., Alice) into an introductory engineering course (called “Engineering Exploration”) at Virginia Tech are presented. The Alice system, provided freely (www.alice.org) as a public service by Carnegie Mellon University, provides a completely new approach to learning programming concepts. This is the FIRST large scale deployment of Alice (1260 engineering freshmen learnt it in fall 2004) in an introductory engineering course. One particularly challenging aspect of this was implementing mathematics into the Alice problem specifications. Two examples of simulating the Solar System and projectile motion of an object using Alice are briefly discussed. Qualitative analysis of instructor and student experiences are discussed along with quantitative survey results to measure the relative success of this initial endeavor.