The growing reliance of our society on computer technology will require that the field of computer science evolves accordingly. Although computer science is not just computer programming, programming is the first skill a student must necessarily acquire in order to succeed as a computer scientist. Furthermore, many disciplines such as health and biosciences, engineering and industrial sciences require its researchers to have a sound knowledge of computers and computer programming. In essence, computer programming plays a significant role in research in many fields. Unfortunately, many courses providing an introduction to computer programming, whether in high school, university, or industry, can be intimidating. Recently, there has been a high rate of attrition in undergraduate computer science programs in the U.S1 . Here at Carnegie Mellon University – Qatar, our attrition rate has been at least 40% over the last four years2 . Several of the students who leave computer science, leave the program within the first year. The purpose of the proposed work is to help demystify computer programming mostly at the high school and freshman level by developing innovative strategies and tools for teaching and learning programming logic. By providing students with a solid foundation of programming skills, the task of incorporating such skills in various disciplines becomes easier. Recently, a variety of tools have been developed to aid the instructor in teaching programming in a way that keeps the students entertained yet challenged. Examples include Alice1 , Becker’s Robots2 , Greenfoot3 and Scratch4 . One tool, Becker’s Robots, is a package developed by Byron Becker of the University of Waterloo, Canada. It is aimed at teaching programming in a creative and engaging way. One of the main advantages of this approach is that teachers can introduce fundamental programming concepts without teaching a lot of syntax. In minimal time, students become familiar with what objects are and how they are used. By manipulating Robots in the Robot world, students can test their logic; the graphical interface provides a way by which they can actually see if the Robots are behaving as expected. In short, Becker’s Robots provides a platform in which students can develop their logical skills from the elementary to the more complex. The faculty members of this project have had extensive experience using Becker’s Robots in the classroom5 . The experience has been quite successful; students using Becker’s Robots with varying degrees of prior programming experience showed an understanding of the programming concepts as demonstrated by their completion of assigned exercises. However, the basic robot theme, although effective, can be unexciting after awhile and coming up with exercises and demos that will engage the students is indeed a challenge. In this project, we would like to develop other themes or motifs. Recently, we augmented the Becker’s library by creating classes that encode a soccer motif. This way, students can “program” simple “soccerbots” (which can kick and sprint) rather than regular Becker’s robots. Given the keen interest in soccer in the region, this motif was a hit amongst students – especially males. Developing this motif further as well as coming up with other motifs which are generic as well as culturally-sensitive will be the focus of this undergraduate research project. A motif that appeals to one segment of the student population may not appeal to another, and hence, ideally, instructors should have a wide spectrum of demos and exercises to choose from in order to engage as many students as possible. In short, the goal of this project is to provide prospective instructors with a database of demos and exercises, diverse in motifs, in order to introduce the following fundamental programming concepts: • Sequence • Selection • Iteration • Methods • Arrays • Objects • Classes • Inheritance Three local high school teachers, who teach computer programming, from the American School of Doha (grades 9-12), Qatar Academy (grades 6-10) and Al-Bayan Scientific School (grades 9-12) have expressed interest in providing feedback to the student researchers with regards to the tools they have developed. Additionally, four instructors who teach an introductory computer programming course at CMU-Q will also provide feedback. Some of these high school and freshman instructors are also willing to use the tools throughout the development phase in the classroom as a way of determining their effectiveness. The instructors’ role will be crucial and we will need some systematic way of having them evaluate the tools. Thus, it will be necessary to design an appropriate survey or evaluation form for them to fill out. For those instructors who will be using the tools in the classroom this year, we will also want to obtain feedback from the students in the form of a survey or test. Accordingly, we can assess how effective the different motifs are in demonstrating the programming concepts listed above. Although being successful in teaching programming will help promote computer science and the science and engineering disciplines, we must not ignore another significant benefit. A course on computer programming is in fact a course on problem solving. It teaches students to systematically break down a problem into smaller problems. This is a skill that is undoubtedly beneficial to them in whatever role they play in society.