We teach programming using the cross-platform language Python. The main focus is on learning to understand the detailed requirements of a programming task, and writing programs that are well structured, correct, easy to read, and to maintain. In order to do this students need to develop an understanding of how to represent information both as data and algorithms. Students also need to develop the skills of incrementally developing and testing programs.

The course covers simple variables, expressions, input and output, control structures, functions, using standard data structures such as lists and dictionaries, and using standard Python modules.

By the end of the course students who succeed are able to design and implement a small computer AI program as well as have some idea of the process of AI program execution. Please keep in mind, this course is by no means a full scale of AI introduction, but rather an introduction to Python with a little taste of how AI programs work. If you are interested in learning AI in depth, this might not be the right course for you.