Chance-It: an object-oriented capstone project for CS-1

ABSTRACT

Most people enjoy playing games. Most CS-1 students will enjoy a final project that involves computational game-playing. Chance-It is a simple two-person dice game with many possible strategies at varying levels of sophistication and complexity. These features make the problem of formalizing and encoding a strategy to play Chance-It an interesting final project for CS-1.This paper describes an object-oriented final project for CS-1 in which students build Player1 and Player2 classes to play Chance-It. A ChanceItGame class and driver are provided to coordinate the interactions of these classes. The project provides students with an enjoyable introduction to object-oriented design and the problem of formalizing and codifying human strategy in software. Examples are given in C++, but convert easily to Java.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.1 Applications and Expert Systems
          Subjects: Games

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education; Curriculum

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management, Performance, Theory