Interaction
Design
Professor Terry
Towery
Description: To encourage a hacker DIY low tech approach and aesthetic. As critical Art Ensemble put it I will "Value amateur practice" I do not expect you to become electrical engineers overnight. the goal is to encourage an experimental hacker attitude. Reverse engineer existing objects, break things apart and see how they work.
The physical and the digital are often thought of as distinct and disparate. This class will be an investigation into notions of physicality and interface with respect to the computer, and an exploration of related analog and digital technology. Students will complete a series of exercises that will encourage inquiry into these various technologies and the implications of a connection between or joining of physical and digital worlds. The Parallax Stamp II/Board of Education and various sensor mechanisms will be used in conjunction with programming languages such as PBasic, Lingo and/or Java. Related creative uses of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and custom interactive audiovisual authoring platforms will also be discussed. Students joining this class should be comfortable with code in general, have experience with one programming language or another, and be prepared to solder.
Structure
The course will be divided into four highly interrelated segments:
1. Input
2. Connections to the computer
3. Edit Microprocessors
4. output
Evaluation
criteria
15% Digital Diary should be continued
30% Midterm Project -
35% Semester long project to create a peripheral for a computer or an interactive
art piece.
20% Term long Research paper on topic related inteactive design 10+ pages
Text
Books - Being Digital Nicholas Negroponte
Information Arts MIT Press; ISBN: 026223209X by Stephen Wilson
Suggested Reading The Art of Electronics and The Way Things Work
ISBN: 0395938473
week |
Topic |
Assignment |
Reading |
Input 9/5 |
Introduction to course | Bring at least two examples of sensors to class next week. Radio Shack is a great source | Making the physical Environment interactive and Ubiquitous computing and look over NYU's Physical computing site |
| 9/12 | Commercially available options for Physical projects |
Pick a mit research group and do 5 minute presentation on their research next week | Information
Arts Chapter 5 Robotics and Kinetics |
| 9/19 | Hacking and reverse engineering Forming a Research Group? |
Deconstruct an electonic product. Map its parts and bring to class. |
and Furby
autopsy hack furby Information Arts Chapter 7 |
| 9/26 | Microprocessors eg STAMP, embedded, Handyboard, | Choose a tachnolgy to work with for the term and order your parts | Critical Art Ensemble Tactical projects intro to Digital Resistance Dan Osullivan's Choosing a microcontroller |
| 10/3 | Making connections to the computer. What is Bluetooth? Other connectivity options e.g. serial, usb, firewire, airport... | Bring your parts to class next week | Blue
Tooth and Apple's Bluetooth page
and macworld article on bluetooth How stuff works and how transistors work |
| 10/10 | Soldering lab | Pitch your project to the group next week | Alan Rath interview |
| 10/17 | midterm
In process crit |
Futurist manifestos | |
| 10/24 Edit |
Programming options: Midi, lingo, java, various strains of C, | Computing
Machinery and Intelligence AKA The MIT
AI lab Information Arts Chapter 4 |
|
| 10/31 | Artificial intelligence | OS X comes with the simulated therapy program, Eliza. In the terminal type emacs and hit enter. When the editor has loaded, hold shift and hit the escape key. Then type xdoctor and hit return. Answer the first question and proceed from there. When you're done, control-X control-C will quit the editor. | Turing test |
| 11/7 | Creating a great game design document | ||
| 11/14 Output |
MIT Concepts video magazine | ||
| 11/21 | Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction | ||
|
11/28
No Class Thanksgiving recess |
|||
| 12/5 | Open lab session | ||
| 12/12 | Final Meeting and Critique | All work due at beginning of class | |
| University
labs: MITs Media Lab and Nylon Carnegie Mellon robotics lab HITLab NYU's ITP program Dan OSullivan's Physical Computing site and Tom Igoe's syllabus and the annual exhibition featuring physical computing projects University of Maryland Human Computer interaction lab Stanford Human Computer interaction lab |
Artists
and projects: Alan Rath interview Troika Ranch Simon Penny Critical Art Ensemble especially see the books section for free downloads of their writings. Douglas Engelbart Inventor of the mouse Ken Goldberg's Telegarden Alice Bots SRL Survival Research Lab RTmark.org espcially the barbie liberation front etoy and an RTmark article documenting some of tha actions Next five minutes 5 Paul Pfeifer Rodney Brooks Alzado.net - control of spotlights in a public square over the net. Amorphic Robot Works - Dot Matrix Printer Symphony Ken Feingold - Arthur Ganson kinetic sculptures Kelly Heaton - Perry Hoberman has done a number of interesting projects turning the computer and user interface around to make the user part of the system instead of conteoller of it. Toshio Iwai Natalie Jeremijenko asks hard questions. ScratchRobot - a robot that converts emails into sound The Thimbletron - Thimble-based hand MIDI controller. |
| Tachnologies: Activewire ICube EZIO Steim especially some of their software products Breadboarding STAMP Handy Board Midi theremin virtual theremin Lego Mindstorms siteplayer ADBIO archive |
Resources: Human-Computer Interaction resources Phidgets Examples of physical widgets Useit Jakob Nielsens site ACM The association for Computing Machinery www.digitalartsource.com Human Computer Interaction network Includes a jobs listing AID Recommended readings from the interface hall of shame Google directory of HCI Nooface.net In search of the post PC interface ARG Art and robotics group |
| Sources
for parts: http://www.microchip.com Robot Store check out their muscle wire Stamps in class Parallax sells stamps Jameco.com Electroincs components Digikey electronic components Edmunds scientific lazer pointers etc... Anchor optical for those prisms and mirrors Pitsco Markertek Video supplies DGH Data Acquisition Marlin P Jones parts Waytek Inc. wiring supplies Automation Direct sensors,controllers,operator interface B&B electronics computer communication tool manufacturer |
Software: Other: |