Art B2011 Syllabus

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Lab 2: Digital In/Out

• Readings:
• Essay: Emotion & Design
• Arduino Cookbook Ch2, Ch3, Ch 5.1 - 5.5
• Physical Computing's Greatest Hits & Misses
• Essay: Talk to Me
• Bret Victor: Rant on the Future of Interaction Design
• Doings:
• ITP Lab: Digital In/Out
• ITP Lab: Switches
• experiment: Create a circuit and a program 3 buttons allow you to change the blinking of 1 LED
• experiment: Create a circuit and a program 1 button will allow you to change between 3 or more blinking LEDs
• Lab Report:
• Write a blog post assessment of what you learned/struggled with from the experiments. Include images of your circuit. Also include your code pasted into the post. Include a couple paragraph response to the readings

Lab 3: Analog In/Out

• Readings:
• Watch something awesome: Circuit Sniffing by Nicolas Collins
• Arduino Cookbook: Chs 5.6-5.11, 6.0-6.2, 7.0-7.6, 9.0-9.7
• Ch 2: Love Objects
• Make It So: Ch 9: Anthropomorphism
• Doings:
• ITP Lab: Analog In/Out
• Using a voltage divider
• Take a look at the following Arduino Tutorials: Fade, Calibration, Smoothing, Tone, Tone Follower, and Simple Keyboard
• research: Any sensor. Write a short paragraph about what it is, how it works, and possible applications.
• experiment: Using a light sensor, create a circuit and a program that responds to your environment in an unsusual way. Use atleast 2 of the following techniques for working with the sensor data: smoothing, constraining, calibrating, mapping.
• Lab Report:
• Write up a blog post describing the process and result of your experiments with sensor input and output. Include information about which method for working with sensor data you chose and note any modifcations you made to that code. Also include short section on sensor research.

Lab 4: Serial Communication - Screens!

• Readings:
• Arduino Cookbook: Ch 4 - Serial Communication
• In depth on how Serial works
• Doings:
• Arduino tutorial: Physical Pixel
• ITP Lab: Serial Communication
• Other useful labs: Serial w/ multiple inputs, Dimmer, Virtual Color Mixer
• experiment: Based on what you've learned from the examples, create a Processing sketch (or max patch) and an Arduino sketch where a physical interaction controls a virtual response, or vice versa.
• Lab Report:
• Write up a blog post describing what you've created and where you might go if you had more time. Also include documentation of the experiment working as well as circuit diagram and a link to github repo containing Arduino and Processing code.

Lab 5: 555 LED Flasher + github

• Readings:
• Watch: Anthony Dunne Speculative Everything
• Adafruit's awesome tutorial on Soldering
• How to read a schematic / circuit diagram
• How to Read a Datasheet
• Doings:
• 
• 
• 
• experiment: Using the circuit above, prototype on a breadboard a LED flasher using a variable input such as a potentiometer, photocell, FSR, or any other sensor with similar resistance. Make any necessary modifications to obtain the correct resistance values.
• experiment: Solder the above circuit onto a perf board. Think of various ways of integrating basic analog functions into your midterm or larger projects.
• experiment: Set up Git/Github + create repo for your midterm - link to Github tutorial and a link to Roopa V's tutorial Link to blog post re: setting up here
• Lab Report:
• Document and report on your experiments with the 555 timer. How could using analog circuitry and soldering more robust circuits contribute to future projects? How did it go setting up Git/Gub? Provide a link to your midterm repo

Lab 6: Wireless Communication

• Readings:
• JeenNode Pin Mapping
• Doings:
• Adafruit CC3000 wifi shield tutorial: hello internet!, access a webpage,
• Bot Thoughts JeeNode tutorial: link
• Lab Report:
• Describe what you did with the wifi shield as well as the Jeenode. Include links to any documntation (video/photos/github if applicable). Write up a brief paragraph describing ideas for possible future projects using wireless communication.

Lab 7: Motors / Actuators

• Readings:
• Pcomp Self Quiz #2
• Doings:
• ITP tutorials: DC Motor w/ H-bridge, Stepper Motor w/ H-Bridge, Servomotor control, High Current loads w/ transistor
• experiment: Make something move! An intervelometer for a camera, the arms of a stuffed toy, you name it.
• Lab Report:
• Write up a brief post on how it went with motors. Describe what you learned and how different motors might work best for different applications. Include documentation (photos, video, github if applicable) of your experimentations with motors.