The DX-Mars Project

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DX-Mars is a video game-like programming framework with a simple, object-oriented design intended for early computer science students. It is a 2-D isomorphic, tile-based environment based on the recent NASA missions to Mars. In the “game” the user controls a Mars rover who moves and teleports around the surface of Mars, collecting items and gathering data.

This fall (2004), the DX-Mars framework was used in a data structures and algorithms course here at the University of Michigan to teach the basics of stacks, queues, and path-finding. In this course, the students filled out the AI module of the Mars rover, programming it to use both depth-first search and breadth-first search path-finding algorithms in order to gather objects and complete its mission. In addition, they programmed their own stack and queue classes to use in their DFS/BFS algorithms.