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Introduction to Physical Computing
Adjunct Professor Andrew G. Milmoe
Thursdays 6:30pm - 9:00pm
H79.2301.05 - Fall 2005

- Course Description
- Projects
- Recommended reference and reading material
- Student Journals

Class topics and assignments by week:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14

Stuff to Get:

- Parts you'll need for Intro. to Physical Computing
- A useful starter toolkit
- Many parts are sold at the NYU computer store:
242 Greene Street. Phone: 212.998.4672

Office hours

Monday 7:00pm to 10:00pm
by appointment. Schedule appointments 24hrs in advance
by e-mail.

Useful links:

Physical Computing ITP - ITP's Physical Computing Homepage

The Physical Computing Homepage (Tom Igoe's site)
A collection of resources, examples, and lecture notes for the physical computing courses at ITP.

Resources page
A database of sources for physical computing parts, methods, software, and other resources.

Phys Comp Notes
Working notes on physical computing and embedded networking.

Code
Code examples and lab exercises for physical computing.

 

Note: This page contains links out to some of the extensive Physical Computing resources on the ITP web site rather than reproducing their content here...

Students enrolled in this course should bookmark this page and check back weekly as information is subject to change.

Course Description

Physical Computing is an approach to learning how humans communicate through computers that starts by considering how humans express themselves physically. In this course, we take the human body as a given, and attempt to design computing applications within the limits of its expression.

To realize this goal, you'll learn how a computer converts the changes in energy given off by our bodies (in the form of sound, light, motion, and other forms) into changing electronic signals that it can interpret. You'll learn about the sensors that do this, and about very simple computers called microcontrollers that read sensors and convert their output into data. Finally, you'll learn how microcontrollers communicate with other computers.

Physical computing takes a hands-on approach, which means that you spend a lot of time building circuits, soldering, writing programs, building structures to hold sensors and controls, and figuring out how best to make all of these things relate to a person's expression.

 

Lab Assignments:

There is a lab activity for nearly every class in the first half of 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.

Projects:

There are two production projects and one observation project during the semester. In these projects, you will observe and document a possible situation in which you might use physical computing techniques and develop a prototype to fit the situation. In the production projects you will also test it and report on it.

For 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.

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

My Notes:

The labs will teach you how to later labs, more interesting projects, allow you to participate in class discussions, and if that were not enough they are 15% of your grade.

Top

Student Journals:

Terence Arjo
Evan Barba
Greg Beliczynski
Langdon Crawford
Charles Harlan
Steven Jackson
Steve Kerrigan
Sam Lee
Avani Patel
Joon Ho Phang
Arly Ross
Adam Samuels
Vikas Sapra
Bruce Shackelford
Sandra Villarreal
Fazreen Zaianne

Journal & Documentation:

You are expected to participate in the class' online journal, which takes the form of a collaboratively-edited blog. The purpose of the journal is two-fold. First, it is a valuable way for you to communicate to me that you are keeping up with the work in the class. I will read the journal to see how students are doing, and the journal should be updated regularly throughout the semester. At a minimum, reference to each week's work is expected, as well as reference to the readings, and thorough documentation of the three main projects and technical research. You may choose to document your major projects in a separate individual or group site if you choose, but you will be expected to link your site to the main site, and contribute to the class site as well nonetheless. Please avoid flash, shockwave, or other sites that are not text-searchable, as they won't show up on search engines for others to use.

Blogs are great for documenting your process, as they're usually defaulted to organizing the information chronologically. However, projects summarized in a blog can be confusing. It's often worthwhile to set up a separate page or pages to summarize your projects when they're done.

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. Explain the project at the beginning of your documentation, so that people who come to the site from outside this class will understand the overview before they get the explanation.

Don't overload your notes with code. If you've made a big improvement on an existing piece of code, post your new code, and link to the code you based it on (just as you would in citing a pervious author in a paper). If you only changed one part of an existing program, post only the part you changed, and link to the original. Make sure any code you post is well-commented, so you and others can understand what it does.

Always cite the sources of your code, the places you learned techniques from, and the inspirations of your ideas. This is the equivalent to citing your sources in a written paper, and copying code or techniques without attribution is plagiarism. few ideas come out of the blue, and your readers can learn a lot from the sources you learned from or were inspired by.

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 template with areas you should consider for each project.

A few good recent sample journals:
• Jason Babcock's journal These are notes Jason kept throughout his time at ITP. Each section covers the technical details of a specific project. Sometimes the task is part of a larger project, and sometimes it's a project in itself. This is an excellent example of how to document the tech details of your projects.

• Geraldine Sarmiento Geraldine's is a good example of a recent physical computing journal. Her notes on her process are clear even if you don't know the project, and she includes photos and code samples where necessary.

• John Schimmel John's journal offers good explanations of all of his projects. You can see that, like Geraldine's, his journal is in reverse chronological order, perhaps because of the way his blog software defaults. But his post titles are descriptive, so you can skip around and know a bit about what you're getting.

• Saranont Limpananont Though his journal is not for the physical computing class, Nont's journal is an excellent example. He combines thoughtful critical reading notes, details on his technical process, and clear descriptions of his projects. His documentation of Physical SimVillage is a good example of a summary of the project that's independent from his working notes.

• Sasha Harris-Cronin (see the Constructions link). Sasha details how she's made her project very nicely. Her explanations and parts lists make it clear how to make your own.

• Jen Lewin's Blueink site (see the physical computing link). Jen taught this class a few years ago, and her syllabus is still helpful. Her documentation of her own projects is good too.

• Many others

Grading:

- Participation & Attendance: 20%
- Lab Assignments: 15%
- Observation Project: 15%
- Project 2: 15%
- Final: 20%
- Journal: 20%

My Notes:

You have the option of using Moveable Type as a way of recording you journal. More details to as they become available...

I find journals challenging, but especially crucial. If you don't document it then it never happened.

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. If you're going to be late or absent, please email me in advance. If you have an emergency, please let me know as soon as you can. Please turn in assignments on time as well.

Laptops

Laptop use is fine if you are using your laptop to present in class, or if we're in the middle of an exercise that makes use of it. Whenever classmates are presenting or we're in the midst of a class discussion, however, please keep your laptop closed. The quality of the class depends in large part on the quality of your attention and active participation, so chat live with your classmates: talk with your mouth not with your hands.

Parts

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.

Books

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. This book was developed from this course, so if you're looking for a textbook, this is it.

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 Crawford, ©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.

Magazines

Here are a few magazines I (Andrew) like so I'm going to add them here to the syllabus. They all are available online to some degree, yet I still subscribe to the paper versions for subway reading.

Make Magazine - Great resource for all sorts of hacks and tricks. Some are better explained than others.

Technology Review - Mostly larger technological issues but a great way to stay slightly ahead of the crowd. (sometimes months ahead of mainstream press) I think Wired was headed in this direction but lost their edge.

Nuts & Volts - More technical and advanced on occasion, but a good source of hobbyist electrical engineering tips and tricks. They also produce Servo which is more specifically towards robotics.

My Notes:

If you are late to class you may find yourself working with Santa.

Books:

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

The first few chapters do a great job of explaining many of the basics we cover the first 2 weeks of class.

Class Topics

Presentation

- Introductions
- Cover the syllabus and class structure
- Digital vs. Analog
- Logic vs. Power Circuits
- Introduction to Electronics: Definition of electronic components, reading a volt/amp meter, reading a schematic, relationships between the basic elements.
- Soldering (thanks to Jeff Feddersen for the link)

Assignments for next week

- Join the PhysComp listserv
- Start your journal and e-mail me the URL
- Lab assignment: Basic Electronics
- Reading:

Crawford The Art of Interactive Design Chapters 1 & 2
To access this you will need to:

- Login to NYUHome
- click on the RESEARCH tab
- under "Article Search" you'll find a link to "Books24x7.com"
- Search for the ISBN:
1886411840
or just Crawford...

Buxton "Less is more, More or less"

 

You should be able to order up to three sample chips directly from Microchip by registering with their website.

The chip we will be using in class is a
PICmicro Microcontroller
PIC 18F452-IP

We'll get in to more details about what this is and how it works soon, (the site is a bit intimidating at first) but you should place your request for samples so that they arrive in time to use them later in the semester.

In the mean time they should be available in the computer store.

Presentation

- Microcontrollers: what they are, different types, levels.
- Intro to PIC and PIC Programming
- Digital Input and Output
- Serial Output (for debugging, more detail in Week 5)

Assignments for next week

- Lab Assignment: Digital input and output using
the PIC microcontroller
- Begin Observation Project Group Project
- Sign up for mandatory tool safety secession in the workshop to be completed by week 3 or 4. Safety sessions are every day at 2pm, 12 people per session.
- Sign up for 2 shop clean up sessions.

Presentation

- Memory and variable types: binary, decimal, hexadecimal (hex)
- Analog input: what an analog to digital converter (ADC) is.

Assignments

- Project work: Observation Project Present location and observations.
- Lab Assignment: Variables and Analog Input Analog in; tracking changes with variables; practical jokes
- Norman, Design of Everyday Things, ch1 (in coursepack)
- Norman, Emotional Design, ch1, "Attractive Things Work Better."

 

Week 4
September 29th
Top

Presentation

- Analog Output : Sending a signal to devices that create analog motion or sound... servos, freqout, pulse width modulation (PWM)
- Show final prototypes ideas for Observation Project

Assignments

- Begin device/instrument/tool project (Group Project)
- Lab assignment: Analog output/Servo Control
- Reading: Myron Krueger, "Responsive Environments", in Packer & Jordan, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, ch. 12, pp. 104-120. (in coursepack)

 

Sorry for the confusion, but we have completed the first Observation Project. Please direct your efforts towards the device/instrument/tool project.

Presentations

- Serial communication: Sending bytes out
- Serial interpretation: Understanding the bytes (ASCII)

Assignments

- Serial to desktop: Data in to Processing
- Presentations Due: device/instrument/tool project
- Lab assignment: device/instrument/tool project initial prototype
- Reading: Applications TBA

 

See Above...

Presentations

- Digital Output: Transistors and relays: Controlling higher-current electrical devices (light bulb and switch)
- Controlling DC motors and Stepper motors

Assignments

- Presentations Due: device/instrument/tool project initial prototype
- Begin advanced prototype of device/instrument/tool project
- Lab Assignment: DC Motor control
- Reading for week 7:
Nørretranders, User Illusion, ch. 6,
"The Bandwidth of Consciousness"

Presentations

- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) and other control protocols
- Be sure to take note of this simplified MIDI Output circuit.

Assignments

- Presentations Due: device/instrument/tool project advanced prototype
- Lab Assignment: Talk to a MIDI device

 

Presentations

- Presentations Due: device/instrument/tool project (all projects to present)

Assignments

- Project: Decide on what projects you want to re-do for your final project
-Reading assignment TBD

 

Presentations

- Code approaches: State Machines, pseudocode, using subroutines well

Assignments

- Begin your final project (group or individual)
- Reading for week 10:
Hoffman, Visual Intelligence, ch. 7, pp.172-184

 

Presentations

- Video Tracking
- Final projects: Present final concepts, show observations

Assignments

- Work on Final Project: Reasearch and begin ordering/finding parts, do appropriate planning required to stay on shedule.

 

Presentations

Final Project: Show thematic diagrams, pseudo code, technical research or other preparations you've made in planning your project.
- Synchronous Serial or other topic TBA
- Project workshop

Assignments

- Work on Final Project: Build prototype and do user testing.

 

Presentations

- Final Project: Demonstrate prototype and show user testing research (five to eight projects, chosen at random)
- Project workshop

Assignments

- Finish your final project, then make it better, then document it in your journal.

 

Presentations

Final Project Presentation: First half (Individual projects)

Presentations

Final Project Presentation: Second Half (Remaining individual projects and group projects)

Happy Holidays