Weekly Schedule

NB: this schedule is subject to change!

  • Feb 1
    • Introductions – housekeeping
    • basics of electricity & electronics
    • multimeters
    • what’s up switches?!?
    • breadboards
    • basic components
    • Homework :
      • get the materials you need for the class
      • Make a switch that you can control without using your hands. Document it on the class site with a blog post. When you post, use the category “Switches”
      • Read the Excerpts from the prologue and Ch1 of “Making Things Talk”
      • Read “There Will Come Soft Rains” and “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
      • On the blog, write a comment to my post about the Bradbury stories, particularly in light of the fact that we’re talking about building networked devices in this course. This should be at least 300 words long. You may find it easier to pick one of the stories, but if you do, be sure to reference the other one as well.
  • Feb 8
    • microcontroller basics
    • more switches
    • setting up your environment
    • digital input/output
    • solder party
    • Homework
      • Read Ch 1 and the prologue of the Design of Everyday Things (distributed via Slack)
      • Read Ch 1 and the prologue of Emotional Design (distributed via Slack)
      • Observation assignment : Observe someone other than yourself using an interface in public. Document what you believe they are trying to accomplish, what steps they must take to reach their goal, and what sort of barriers they encounter. On the blog, post your observations and reflect on how the information from the readings may have helped streamline this interaction. What were the affordances, and what were the signifiers? Tag these posts with the category ‘observation’
      • Continue to work with your microcontrollers and switches. Build an interface for your microcontroller that uses the switch you built from the previous week. What about your switch makes it easy, what makes it hard? How can you contextualize this interaction? Make a comment on your original post about how you did, or did not get the switch to work with your microcontroller.
  • Feb 15
  • Feb 22
    • Introduction to the ESP module
    • basics of WiFi and local networking
    • manage a client connections & server things
    • Homework :
      • Read Making Things Talk, pp 12-19, 88-106
      • Using the sensor server example as a starting point, turn the HUZZAH board into a webserver. Use a sensor or switches to change elements on the page. It may be easiest for this exercise if you write the HTML first, then put it into the Huzzah. Remember, the microcontroller can’t hold that much information, so the pages shouldn’t be too large. Post your work to the class blog before 10am Friday.
  • Mar 1
    • remote control of your microcontroller
    • aREST library introduction
    • Reading : The computer for the 21st Century by Mark Weiser (pdf). This was written in the early 1990s, and set the stage for a lot of what we think of when we talk about connected devices. Think about ubiquitous technologies of today, vs those when you were a child. What has changed, what’s different? What are some technologies that have been around for a hundred year, or a thousand? What does it mean for these to fade into the background and become part of everyday life? 
    • Midterm assignment: For this project, you are expected to make a physically interactive system that responds to an input and produces an output. You may work in pairs if you like, but each person needs to document what they did. This needs to happen over a WiFi connection with your microcontroller acting as either a client or a server. Some examples :  use the browser as a remote control for a multi-colored lamp, rebuild your love machine as a web app that controls the CSS of your page, make a device that monitors the environment of your home’s temperature that can also control the thermostat. These are some straightforward suggestions, make something unique.
      • The technical implementation does not have to be particularly robust, but the final project should demonstrate a level of polish that goes beyond a regular homework assignment. That is, there should be a clear mapping between the input and the output. What are the affordances of your project? What are the signifiers? How does someone know that there’s something happening in the background when there’s a process going on that’s not immediately apparent?
      • For next week (March 8), you need to write up a description of your project on the blog, and build a prototype of this. The prototype should have the basic  functionality in place. If you struggle with this aspect, then perhaps your idea is too ambitious and you should scale back. Document what is working. Identify what you still have outstanding. Explain what you will do to polish the project, not just in code, but from an interaction and design perspective. 
  • Mar 8
    • setting up something to get around network restrictions
      • herbivore
    • packet sniffing
      • wireshark
    • what’s inside the data?
    • Post your midterm documentation and write up. You will be presenting your work in class.
  • Mar 15
    • Midterm presentations
    • Spring Break assignment :
      • Net Devices Quiz & Midterm follow-up This is due before March 25.
      • Exercise : Wherever you go, whatever you do, there’s internet infrastructure creeping around. Identify three pieces of network infrastructure in public and sketch it. You can take a photograph and use that as a reference, trace over a picture, or just sit there and sketch it. The sketch must be done on paper with pencil, ink, charcoal, or other writing/drawing implement. That is, no digital drawings or scans. Bring your sketches into class on March 29. Take photos of them and post them to the blog as well. When you post, identify what you think the object is, what it does, and why it exists in this way.
  • Mar 29
    • MQTT
    • online services
    • Assignment : 
      • Using a MQTT broker, create a physical system the responds to an external trigger (for example, send a tweet when a cat is on the mat, or use a SMS message to set the brightness of an LED). Post this to the class blog.
      • Find an example of an internet/networked artwork or service that you find inspiring. Write up a short note identifying how you believe it works. Use this as inspiration for your final project. Can you improve on this some way? How would you make it differently?
  • Apr 5
    • guest lecture with Erica Kermani – wearables
    • Assignment : For next week, I expect you to have an idea for your final project. That is, a description of what your thing does, what technologies you will use, and a plan for how to make it happen. Please write this up and post it to the blog. Use photos, illustrations and examples to give as best a description as you can. Try and make a prototype of the basic idea.
    • Install node.js before the next class meeting
  • Apr 12
    • Review final project proposals
    • ArduinoJSON and examples
  • Apr 19
    • Final project check in
    • mesh networking with the ESP with Painless Mesh
    • Assignment :  Post your progress on your final project to the class site. You should be building these devices now, testing your ideas. If you are not making something at this stage, you are already behind.
  • Apr 26
    • Guest lecture – Don Coleman & RFID : class time 11am – 1:30pm
  • May 3
    • Final project review
  • May 10
    • Final project presentations
  • May 17 IDM End of Semester Show