The Homework REPL

Inspiration

New to programming? Tired of seeing ERROR every time you try to program? Feel frustrated with your math homework? Want easy yet instantaneous solutions? Have no fear, the Homework REPL is here!

What it does

The Homework REPL was designed to introduce students to programming in a beginner-friendly fashion. Learning a new programming language can often be daunting for beginners- new syntax rules, working in a new environment, the list goes on. Using layers of abstraction, we introduce students to the idea of programming by streamlining commands and enabling users to gradually get accustomed to programming and the logic behind it without experiencing through the seemingly endless error messages.

How we built it

Using Python and the Google CoLab Jupyter Notebook, we created an interface that works very similarly to how an actual REPL would (hence the name Homework REPL). Users can choose from a plethora of key commands and pass in customized arguments in a declarative paradigm. Using regular expressions, the program parses through the user’s input to identify what operation the user wants to perform as well as the measurements passed in. Helper functions are then called to perform the actual computation and the result is displayed back to the user.

Challenges we ran into

We had to learn how to use distributed source control to ensure that our edits and modification in the Jupyter notebook would not overlap.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

By creating this application, we have allowed students to engage with programming in an easy manner. Furthermore, we have utilized key programming concepts like abstraction to make the application efficient and user-friendly. We also used regular expressions to parse through the user's input, a significant milestone for us as we are applying theoretical computer science concepts learned in class to application based projects!

What we learned

Through completing this project, we have significantly increased our skills in Python, Jupyter Notebook, and using regular expressions to parse user input. Especially as students who are primarily versed with Java, this was a great project for us to expand our horizons and code using a different language.

What's next for The Homework REPL

We hope to reach out to local middle schools and high schools to provide The Homework REPL as a resource for students to use in learning programming and mathematics. We also plan on expanding the range of operations and resources offered by The Homework REPL.