First-year and introductory courses in Computer Science (CS) represent a critical interface between today's youth and the dynamic and innovative pool of IT professionals affiliated with both industry and academia. Professionals today must stand out as innovators in their field in order to succeed and it is widely acknowledged that creativity has strong ties to discovery, invention, and therefore innovation. If this is true, then the objective to inspire innovative thinking through curriculum that encourages creativity is one that fulfills educators' responsibilities to both students and the professional organizations, institutions, and businesses that will later employ them. At the same time, introductory programming courses, the entry point into most CS degree programs, contain many difficult concepts for new learners. This perceived difficulty may be aggravated if the learners cannot identify with the objectives of the software programs they are asked to create, or cannot relate these objectives to real-world problems or (interdisciplinary) applications of CS. Curriculum that motivates learning among students by being responsive to the current demands and trends of technical innovation in society has the potential to break down stereotypes and allow more students to identify with Computer Science and many real-world applications that affect them.

This paper describes an item of innovative curriculum at the University of Victoria that illustrates a real-world application of core learning objectives. Simultaneously, the role of creative problem solving skills and the potential for creative expression within the field of Computer Science is illustrated and promoted. An assignment in a first-term CS programming course focuses on teaching one-dimensional arrays through the manipulation of digital sound. The design of this assignment is based upon practical concerns, but also widely-accepted CS pedagogical approaches and cognitive theory relating to creativity.