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Tex Murphy 6 Νοε 2023, 0:08

Question: Educational Value?

I am currently taking a university boot camp about AI. I am looking for a Steam game to reinforce what I’m learning in the class. Ideally, but not a requirement, it will also help me learn the coding and techniques faster and be a fun game in general. I have not really programmed before taking the boot camp, and it just started about a week ago. Will playing SHENZHEN I/O be good for this purpose, or will another game make more sense to play?

We are primarily using Python in the boot camp. Near the end of this post, I’ll share more info about what is actually being taught in the AI boot camp.

Programming game wise, I have played over 130 hours of Opus Magnum and I love it. While that game has been great at getting my brain to think in terms of programming logic, placing 13 commands on timelines to manipulate 15 elements is a bit different from a game with an actual text-based code editor. Opus Magnum is an awesome game and I’d classify it as a game that’s very easy to learn, challenging to beat, and very hard to master.

I did a Steam tag search for games that have both the programming and education tags. I have tried out some of the following games for about an hour. I liked SpaceChem and Human Resource Machine enough to want to play those from start to finish in the future, for fun. I didn’t like TIS-100 and Hacknet, but I’d be willing to go back to those games if there’s educational value in them that will help me learn Python and AI programming. Are any of these games worth playing to help me in the boot camp?

Programming games that I have tried out for about an hour:
• TIS-100: Even after reading the manual, I got super stuck and made absolutely no progress. It involves entering commands through a prompt though, just like actual programming.
• SpaceChem: I liked this one a lot. However, I think this one is more like Opus Magnum with the timeline instructions instead of typing in code.
• Human Resource Machine: This one was great too. However, I think this was more about mathematical/logical formulas and less about having to deal with complicated syntax.
• Hacknet: I love the graphics and music of this one, but I got quite stuck after the tutorial. Just like TIS-100 though, I think there might be some value here when it comes to programming.

Programming games that I have not yet played at all:
• SHENZHEN I/O: This game does look cool!
• Bitburner: It looks like there’s a lot of code and typing in this one. Educational value?
• while True: learn(): I thought about this game during one of the boot camp class sessions where we were covering while True statements! This game looks really cool, fun, and seems like it has a hilarious story. Educational value though? It has learn in the title!
• Buddi Bot: Your Machine Learning AI Helper With Advanced Neural Networking!: This game has AI and neural networking in the title! That’s a good indication of its value to me. However, it seems more of an adventure game with puzzles than a pure programming game. (It reminds me of Rumu). Educational value?

More info about what we’re learning about in the AI Boot Camp:

*** AI BOOT CAMP TOPICS ***

Introduction to AI
Programming for AI
Preparing Data with Pandas
Sourcing Data for AI Projects
Exploring Data through Visualizations
Making Predictions with Data
Unsupervised Learning
Supervised Learning - Linear Regression
Supervised Learning - Classification
Machine Learning Optimization
Data Ethics
Neural Networks
Deep Learning
Natural Language Processing
Transformers
Emerging Topics in AI

*** AI BOOT CAMP GOALS ***

1. Create Python-based scripts to automate the cleanup, restructuring, and rendering of large, heterogeneous datasets.
2. Interact with APIs using Python Requests and JSON parsing techniques.
3. Create in-depth graphs, charts, and tables utilizing a wide-variety of data-driven programming languages and libraries.
4. Apply machine learning techniques to gain knowledge and solve problems.
5. Use unsupervised machine learning models to categorize unlabeled data.
6. Use supervised machine learning models trained on labeled data to make predictions about data.
7. Evaluate and improve the performance of machine learning models by using test data, metrics, and optimization techniques.
8. Use neural networks and deep learning models to make predictions about data.
9. Determine the sentiment of vector-encoded text using NLP and transformers.
10. Apply the fundamentals of NLP and transformer models to describe how Generative AI creates content.
11. Describe recent innovations in AI and their impact on the field of AI.

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If you’ve read this far, thank you. Will playing SHENZHEN I/O be a useful and fun accompaniment to the boot camp, or should I go with another game?

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Εμφάνιση 1-9 από 9 σχόλια

mala

7 Νοε 2023, 5:42

i've played all the 3 main coding games from zachtronics, tis100, shenzhen and exapunks.
shenzhen is the direct successor of tis100, still writing code manually (language is like assembly), but in shenzhen you have to also design your piece, choosing between different microcontroller, ram, rom, etc. Creating the design of the piece and program it to solve the task can be challenging, but is one of the best game i've ever played. Gives you a nice grasp on a lots of subjects. After playing it for the first time, i've moved to arduino to start learning the real stuff, and man... it did help a lot. My comprehension of the programming logic had grown so much without even noticing. You have to deal with the game constrictions, it's actually harder than doing it for real, but if you're new to programming, it will help you build a great logical framework. Lastly exapunks is also a game i highly recommend, gives you a lot more flexibility that tis and shen, graphically appealing, while still teaching you valid programming skills.

Tex Murphy 8 Νοε 2023, 0:18

Thanks for the info. Since this and TIS is more like assembly, it sounds like it would make the most sense to play these after my boot camp instead of during. It sounds like Shenzhen and Exapunks are more about robotics too, which is really cool because that also ties in with AI. However, the coding in these games seems to be quite different than what I'm going to be doing in Python. I'll definitely give Shenzhen and Exapunks a try, but probably after the boot camp is over.

peter_shoes_ έχει το SHENZHEN I/O

20 Νοε 2023, 19:20

Hey idk if you're still sourcing input, but this is not the game for you if you are learning python. This game deals with programming concepts, but a lot of them are exclusive to embedded systems and assembly. As an embedded engineer myself, you're going to be better off just trying out new stuff in python. That can be a game in itself. Check out the website leetcode (dot) com. You will find a number of interesting puzzles to solve in python or any language.

Best of luck!

Tex Murphy 25 Νοε 2023, 16:06

Yeah, I'm still sourcing input. Thank you for the thoughts and suggestions. I'll check out LeetCode.

Kai~El

27 Μαϊ 2024, 5:20

Necro as hell but I was looking for a reason to pick this up for some educational fun and found your thread. I'm an a career data analyst and want some coding games to help improve myself in more of a puzzle solving way.

For your Python endeavor, there is a game pop up recently called Farmer Was Replaced that specifically deals with Python if you're interested :)

Tex Murphy 27 Μαϊ 2024, 16:15

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από absolutewatermelon:
For your Python endeavor, there is a game pop up recently called Farmer Was Replaced that specifically deals with Python if you're interested :)

Cool, I'll check that out.

Alt-F4

29 Ιουν 2024, 11:54

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από absolutewatermelon:
Necro as hell but I was looking for a reason to pick this up for some educational fun and found your thread. I'm an a career data analyst and want some coding games to help improve myself in more of a puzzle solving way.

A friend of mine recently started up an arcade and we have been looking at getting into edutainment type stuff and setting up something like a robotics club or something. Both of us go back to high school and early college for electronics/radio. High level languages are fun and all, but we are literally to a point where you can talk to the computer and it can make a disturbingly reasonable interpretation of plain speech to come up with its own attempt at problem solving, and I feel we are/were losing the touch with how computers actually function. This game does something unique in that it combines a very realistic assembly language with simplified problems and challenging constraints to make assembly level programming both practical and challenging in an approachable manner. All of this would be ridiculously simple if we had the constraints of a real micro-controller, but when you have nine lines of instructions, one register, two serial data bus, and to gpio pins to play with for your starting rig - you have enough room to solve simple problems in a straight forward manner and play around with optimization, but not enough room to do whatever you want.

In my opinion, it's one of the best programming introductions I think I have ever seen and have every intention of, in the future, seeing if we can work with Zachtronics for a club, school, and/or arcade adaptation. Zachtronics has been doing the Lord's work in my opinion and it's a shame I didn't find them, earlier.

For your Python endeavor, there is a game pop up recently called Farmer Was Replaced that specifically deals with Python if you're interested :)

I'll have to look into that. It may sound strange, but higher level languages are kind of like voodoo to me. The way I think about computers is almost too much from the ground up, and that makes me want to see registers and memory addresses - the idea of a computer working that stuff out on its own just doesn't flow. Perhaps more accurately, the creation of a purely logical computational construct is a bit more abstract than I am used to, and without known hardware constraints and instructions, I have difficulty orienting myself in the 'creative space' to start to build much. If something can do for a higher language, like python, what this does for risc and microcontrollers, then I'd owe you a drink.

Tex Murphy 29 Ιουν 2024, 14:13

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Alt-F4:
In my opinion, it's one of the best programming introductions I think I have ever seen and have every intention of, in the future, seeing if we can work with Zachtronics for a club, school, and/or arcade adaptation. Zachtronics has been doing the Lord's work in my opinion and it's a shame I didn't find them, earlier.

They might do that since they are interested in education, but unfortunately, 2022's Last Call BBS will be the last game from Zachtronics.

https://www.pcgamer.com/zachtronics-is-making-its-final-game-last-call-bbs/

https://www.pcgamer.com/why-last-call-bbs-is-the-last-call-for-indie-studio-zachtronics/