On June 26, 2021, Mark Santolucito, assistant professor of computer science, alongside his co-author, Maria Hwang, an assistant professor of computer science at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), presented new research at the ITiCSE 2021 Computer Science Conference, titled “cardComposer: A Functional Programming Card Game.” In their presentation, Santolucito and Hwang introduced their design for a card game that teaches basic functional programming concepts, like maps and filters.
The game, which is played using a standard deck of playing cards, is designed to be accessible to introductory-level computer science students, and teachable within a one-hour lecture period. In this article, Santolucito and Hwang outline the instructions for their card game, as well as their plans for the future of the project, with the goal of increasing the accessibility of foundational computer science concepts.