Instructor: Tom Igoe
Monday, 9:30 - 3PM, 3:30 PM - 6 PM
Office Hours: Thursday 10 AM - 6 PM (email me to make an appointment)

• Introductions, Class structure, Digital vs. Analog
• Intro to Electronics: Definition of components, reading a meter, reading a schematic, Ohm's Law
• Soldering (thanks to Jeff Feddersen for the link)
• Assignments:
  • Join the physcomp listserve
  • Start your phys comp journal, email me the URL.
  • Attend a Tool safety session in the shop. All students using the shop are required by the University office of Ennvironmental Safety to attend a safety session.
  • Lab: Electronics
• Reading: Buxton, "Less is more (more or less)"

Week 2 (Sept. 20):

• Microcontrollers: what they are, different types, levels.
• Intro to PIC and PIC programming
• Digital Input and Output
• serout2 (for debugging; more detail in week 6)
• Introduce Project 1, assign groups
• Assignment:
  • Lab: first PIC program
  • Begin Project 1
• Reading: Crawford, The Art of Interactive Design, chapters 1 and 2

Week 3 (Sept. 27):

• Memory and variables: Decimal, binary, hex.
• Analog input, what an ADC is.
• Assignments:
  • Project work: Present location and observations.
  • Lab: Analog in; tracking changes with variables; practical jokes
• Reading: Myron Krueger, "Responsive Environments", in Packer & Jordan, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, ch. 12, pp. 104-120.

Week 4 (Oct. 4):

• Analog output: Devices that create analog motion or sound. (servo, freqout, PWM)
• Assignments:
  • Project 1: show prototype
  • Lab: servo/analog out
• Reading: none

Week 5 - (Oct. 11):

• Project 1: show results (everyone)
• Reading: Norman, Design of Everyday Things, ch. 1

Week 6 (Oct. 18):

• Serial output: Sending bytes out
• Serial interpretation: ASCII
• Serial to desktop: Into Processing
• Introduce Project 2
• Assignments:
  • Begin project 2
  • Lab: Serial output and Talking to Processing
• Reading: Nørretranders, User Illusion, ch. 6, "The Bandwidth of Consciousness"

Week 7 (Oct. 25):

• MIDI and other control protocols
• Assignment:
  • Project 2: present instrument, show observations
  • Lab: Talking to a MIDI device 
• Reading: Applications: ThinkCycle

Week 8 (Nov.1):

• Digital output: Transistors and Relays: switching higher-current devices (light bulb and switch)
• Motors and Inductance:
  • DC motors
  • Steppers
• Assignment:
  • Project 2: show prototype
  • Lab: Controlling a motor 
• Reading: none

Week 9 (Nov. 8):

• Project 2: show results (everyone)
• Assignment: think about your final; be prepared to talk about it next week.
• Reading: Hoffman, Visual Intelligence, ch. 7, pp.172-184

Week 10 (Nov. 15):

• Discuss Final
• Video Tracking
• Project planning -- methods and approaches (and review of methods from previous projects)
• Assignment:
  • Begin final project

Week 11 (Nov. 22):

• Final Project: show observations (five to eight projects, chosen at random)
• Project workshop

Week 12 (Nov. 29):

• Final: show prototype (five to eight projects, chosen at random)
• Project workshop

Week 13 (Dec. 6):

• Final Project Presentation (half of projects)

Week 14 (Dec. 13):

• Final Project Presentation (half of projects)

There is a lab activity for nearly every class in the semester. They are very short, simple activities. These are the basic steps you need to go through to understand the principle discussed in class each week. They're designed to help you not only to understand the technical details, but also to get a feel for what the technologies we're discussing can do, so that you can incorporate them into actual applications. There are application suggestions in many of them as well. I expect that each student will at least complete the steps outlined in the lab activity each week, so that you understand practically what it is we're talking about. Document any discoveries you make, pitfalls you hit, and details not covered in the class or the lab that you think will be useful for your fellow students and future students in this class.

There are three assigned projects during the semester. These are three-week assignments in which you observe a possible situation in which you might use physical computing, develop and build a prototype to fit the situation, test it, and report on it.

For one of the first two projects, you will be assigned to work in a group. For the other project, and for the final, you may work alone or in groups, as you choose. There will be four to seven assigned groups, depending on class size. Half the groups will be featured on the first project, and half will be featured on the second. When your group is one of the featured groups, you'll present during all three weeks of the project. Even when you're not featured, you should complete the project and document your work online (see journal, below).

Each week, the featured groups will present their work on the project. In the first week, you'll present the location or situation you observed, and what you propose to do there. In the second week, you'll present your prototype, at least partially working. You should also explain the technologies used in this week, particularly if you're using a new sensor or device. In the third week, you'll present the working prototype and report on what you observed when people used it.

More details on the projects can be found in the project brief.

You will be expected to keep an online journal of your work in this class. Think of it as a letter to the next group to take this class: the tricks you found that work, the pitfalls you hit, ways around them, sources for materials, reference material, etc. It can be no-frills HTML, no pictures necessary, just notes. Blogs and wikis are fine. A Moveable Type installation is available for all students to use on the ITP server. Feel free to use it to set up a blog if you don't have much experience making websites. No flash, shockwave, or other sites that are not text-searchable, please. Here's a template you can use. Ideally, it will give you a head start on documenting your projects for future portfolio reference, and those who come after you a place to look for advice.

A journal entry is part of the assignment for each project you do, at the least. Feel free to do more entries as you see fit. These will be added as links to the class site.

Work on this as you go, don't put it off until the end. Your fellow classmates will find your notes as useful too.

See the HTML template with areas you should consider for each project.

You should document your projects thoroughly. Plan in advance, and perhaps as a group, to have what you need to document at least your midterms and finals. Photos, video, drawings, schematics, and notes are all valuable forms of documentation.

A few good recent sample journals:

• Lisa Cohen
• Ray Cha
• Sasha Harris-Cronin (see the Constructions link)
• Jen Lewin's Blueink site
• Kari Martin
• Many others

Grading:

• Participation & Attendance: 15%
• Lab Assignments: 15%
• Project 1: 15%
• Project 2: 15%
• Final: 20%
• Journal: 20%

Participation & Attendance

Showing up on time, engaging in the class discussion, and offering advice and critique on other projects in the class is a major part of your grade. Please be present and prompt. Lateness will hurt your grade, as I use the "ghost rule." Show up late, and you can stay, but you can't talk or ask questions. Late attendance affects your grade adversely. If you're going to be late or absent, please email me in advance. If you have an emergency, please let me know.

Please turn in assignments on time as well. For every week an assignment is late, it loses a letter grade, e.g. 1 week late means a maximum possible grade of A-, 2 weeks is a maximum B+, and so forth.

Laptops

I'm all for people taking notes on laptops in class, and there will be occasions when it'll be useful to connect to the net in class for classwork, but please don't check email, or IM, or surf the net on unrelated topics, or do your work for other classes in class. That's rude to everyone else in the class.

A list of parts needed for the first few weeks follows. You will end up spending money on materials in this class. It can be done reasonably inexpensively, by scavenging parts, reusing parts, and so forth, but more ambitious projects inevitably make demands on your budget.

Below are recommended texts for the course in general. Individual instructors may have their own recommendations as well. All of them are good inspirational guides for physical computing and computing in general. They are not assigned, but pick up at least one of them and incorporate it in your midterm journal, if nothing else.

Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers, Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe ©2004, Thomson Course Technology PTR; ISBN: 159200346X
Includes all the stuff covered in class and lots of advanced examples as well.

The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman ©1990 Doubleday Books; ISBN: 0385267746
If you design at all, or work with people who do, read this. A lucid approach to the psychology of everyday interaction and how the objects we deal with could be better designed to match the strengths and weaknesses of the way we think. His predictions about physical interaction design and information design, some accurate and some not, are interesting history lessons eleven years after the first edition.

The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size, Tor Nørretranders ©1998 Viking Press; ISBN: 0670875791
Makes the case that much of our experience of the world does not come to us through our consciousness; in fact, the majority of it dealt with pre-consciously.

The Art of Interactive Design, Chris Craw ford, ©2002 No Starch Press; ISBN: 1886411840
Written in a very casual style, this book nevertheless is an excellent and concise summary of what interaction design is, why it is important, and what problems it brings with it. Anyone seriously interested in interaction design, physical or not, should read this book.

The following are good references for electronics hobbyists. Take a look at both, and get one or the other as a general reference, or find an electronics reference of your own (a few more are listed in the books section of the site).

Getting Started in Electronics, Forrest M. Mims III, ©1983, Forrest M. Mims III
A very basic introduction to electricity and electronics, written in notebook style. Includes descriptions of the basic components and what they do, and how they relate to each other.

Practical Electronics for Inventors, 1st Edition. Paul Scherz, ©2000, McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing; ISBN: 0070580782
A more in-depth treatment of electronics, with many practical examples and illustrations. An excellent reference for those comfortable with the basic topics. The use of plumbing systems as examples to demonstrate electric principles makes for some very clear illustrations of how different components work. Good chapters on sound electronics and motors as well.

A longer list of books for inspiration and reference is available online at the books link.