14 weeks of teaching consisting of lectures and exercises

14 weeks of teaching consisting of lectures and exercises
The Processing programming language is used to get a first overview of fundamental programming techniques. Teaching time will be divided between lectures, tutored sessions and presentations of students' solutions. All lectures will be complemented by practical programming
assignments, some of which will be small and clearly focussed (at the start of the semester), while others will be more open to artistic or playful interpretation (towards the end of it); all will be done individually except the last one which is done in teams. Participants are asked to manage their own time; the exercises are divided into groups, usually including a mix of approaches, requirements and techniques. Participants will go through cycles of learning something and using it for cool stuff; then learning some more, and using that; the cycles get bigger and more challenging during the semester.

I recommended to get a (hard- or digital) copy of the well-known Processing book by Reas, Fry (2014). The course loosly follows it, and I find it well-written and reasonably easy to understand. There are several other Processing books available, e.g. by Greenberg (2007), Shiffman (2008), Noble (2009), and Bohnacker et al. (2012), which I find not as well-suited to our introductory course (but do what works for you).

Every week there is a lecture; the exercises are introduced and explained. After the lecture everybody can work on the exercises in the lab. At the end of each day participants have the opportunity to present something they have done on that day.

There are two rounds of exercises in the course. Round one consists of 36 exercises, four of which are mandatory (see field on Mandatory Activities). The second round of exercises is due in the end of the semester (at ITU's official exam hand-in date - see field on Assessment form & description).

As this is a skill-based technical course, the main criterium for assessing your work is demonstrated understanding of programming concepts (this is e.g. done by skillfully writing code, but also by presenting your solutions and explaining them); further relevant criteria which are clearly connected to that are active participation and constructive criticism in discussions, asking interesting and relevant questions, doing the assigned exercises and handing-in the
material that is asked for on time, managing your time to arrive at good results, being able to talk about your work, support peer learning, and being receptive to new ideas and willing to learn. 

Hand-in of four programming exercises that demonstrates an understanding of fundamental principles of program design as well as skills related to problem solving and the creation of interactive systems.

Three of the hand-ins are to be done individually. The third hand-in is typically a game and it may be done in pairs.

The exercises are assessed summatively.