Student teamwork: A capstone course in game programming

Many computer science (CS) undergraduate programs have experienced dramatic reductions in the number of incoming freshman and transfer students in recent years. Simultaneously, industry feedback informs us that graduating students should have experience working with others and on long-term software projects. This requirement is due to the fact that most industry projects are team-based, often take months or years to complete, and are often global in nature. Institutions have addressed these issues in a number of ways. Cal Poly Pomona's CS department created a one-term ten-week project course in game programming offered during spring 2006. Teams were assembled comprising of four or five students. The final deliverable for each team was a CD which included a working 3D game and all design documentation (i.e. UML diagrams, source code, etc). This paper discusses the design, implementation, and results of this course. It also describes the outstanding efforts put forth by the students.