Work in progress: Learning flow-of-control with FlipLogic: A game-based approach

Abstract

We present FlipLogic, a puzzle game that we developed to help children (ages 10-12) become familiar with conditional logic statements in programming. We designed the game to be embedded in an existing after-school curriculum on computer programming fundamentals. Our broader goal is to create a series of games to help students learn a variety of programming concepts including control statements, conditional branches, logic expressions, loops, and variables. We plan to study the effectiveness and motivational appeal of our design in after-school settings, comparing this game-based approach with a more traditional instructional approach.