FOCSTROT

Team Info

FOCSTROT by John Hamre and Katiana Wieser

Outline

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Our project FOCSTROT (Fundamentals of Computer Science TRraing Outreach Tessera) is a submission geared towards EDUCATION, and is intended as a means of lowering the barrier to entry for Computer Science by allowing people to interact with fundamental CS concepts without the pressure often associated with “learning to code”. FOCSTROT is an OUT OF THE BOX method of teaching these concepts, and it also serves as a fun and accessible way for anyone, including disadvantaged groups, to think like a Computer Scientist. FOCSTROT is a game that can be played in the physical world with a standard deck of playing cards, or a variant of FOCSTROT can be played virtually. The virtual variant was programmed using Unity and C#; all the graphics were created by our team for FOCSTROT using Pixilart.com.

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Computer Science is a beautiful field, but let’s face it, CS can also be intimidating to beginners. There is even more so a fundamental barrier to access when we perpetuate the idea that CS requires a computer. For this reason, we designed the physical variant of FOCSTROT to be a means of making it possible for anyone to experiment with CS, regardless of their access to computing resources. A deck of playing cards is not only a common household item; they are also inexpensive and can even be made for virtually no cost with paper and markers. Cards were also chosen because they are a familiar and comfortable interface. Many of the first games children learn involve cards, making them far less intimidating then jumping straight into a new interface (such as an IDE).

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You can interact with FOCSTROT using our digital variant available on our Github, or by using a standard deck of playing cards and the instructions in Github.

Built With

• c#
• unity