- This exercise lets students see several ways to design the same thing.
- Students also learn how to merge their own ideas with those of other students when groups combine.
- Activity:
- Begin with teams of two students.
- Give teams requirements to implement for the controller.
- Requirements could include four buttons, each corresponding to a different type of coffee, and a dispensing window.
- After a period of time, have sets of two teams merge so each team now has four students.
- Add an additional requirement for them to implement.
- Continue to repeat this process by creating even bigger teams and adding more requirements.
- Encourage the use of class-responsibility-collaboration (CRC) cards or UML-style class diagrams to organize all of the ideas.
- Note from the CS Teaching Tips Team: Read these Wikipedia articles on CRC cards and class diagrams to learn more.