Computer vision research as a teaching tool in CS1

We have developed a computer vision teaching module consisting of materials for two or three lectures and a final project for use in a CS1 programming course. The final project is to write an image processing program with applications in computer vision. The program will read in a two dimensional array of data from a file that represents a black and white photographic image, perform one or more transformations on the data and write the transformed data to a new file. A simple image viewer program is used to display the before and after images. In addition to learning more about programming it is the intent of the project that students also have some fun with images. Most students did indeed enjoy the visual nature of the project and were surprised that they could write a program to accomplish so much after just one programming course. A few students wrote very creative transformation functions. This CS1 module is one of several developed as part of a CRCD project, sponsored by NSF. The modules are available for free use or adaptation by other instructors and institutions.