An Introductory CS Course for Cognitive Science Students

Accessible Hands-on AI and Robotics Education

Volume

Papers from the 2004 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

This paper describes an introductory computer science course recently developed at Pomona College that is designed specifically for liberal arts students majoring in cognitive science with no previous technical background in programming. A key component of the course is the use of low-cost robots to illustrate ideas about the computational foundations of cognition in a hands-on way. We describe the pedagogical objectives of the course and outline the major topics covered, including the robotics section and its relationship to the other course topics.