Physical Interface Design/Rouvelle/Spring ‘08

Tuesday10- 3 pm

Brown Center 206

Contact: jrouvelle@mica.edu

Office: Brown Center, room 211, phone (in office).

Office hours: by appointment

“But, what does "interface" mean? And "cybernetics?" Basically, the former represents any surface which separates two systems, while the latter is a discipline that studies how the referred systems communicate and interact with each other.

...interactivity can be freely defined as a reciprocal relationship between two systems through an interface, the systems can be human and/or machine

The works selected "embody concepts which are important to cybernetics, such as feedback, communication, causality, information, observation, predictability and equilibrium.

-- Guilherme Kujawski

Course Description

...Tinkering 101...

We will use Nic Collins' recent book, Handmade Electronic Instruments: The Art of Hardware Hacking as our guide to build projects with electronics. Our focus will be the creation of off-screen, interactive, electronic objects. Nic's book begins with the creation of sound emitting devices and progresses through projects whose output is visual.

Your Final Projects will be presented at RoboFest '08 at the Historical Electronics Museum in Linthicum at the end of the semester. This event usually takes place on a saturday. I will give you months notice. The director of the Festival will visit the class several times during the semester.

Evaluation:

Grades in this course will be based on regular class attendance, the quality of your work, class participation, and progress. Tardiness and excessive absences will adversely affect your grade. Participation in discussions and critiques is mandatory.

Projects & Grading:

You will be asked to do assignments throughout the semester. Most of the assignments will be presented in class and will be designed to stimulate group conversation.

***We will not have a final exam during finals week***

Students will be graded by letter, A-F, on all evaluated work. Work must be completed on time and in full satisfaction of each project goal. Late work (assignments handed in or posted after the start of in-class critique sessions) will be automatically downgraded by one letter grade. In addition to in class exercises, you will complete four projects.

A	Well above the expectations of the course. Outstanding participation, attendance, and exceptional progress.
B	Above average assignments and participation. No more than one absence.
C	Average execution of assignments, participation, and no more than two absences.
D	Well below average: work, attendance (two absences), projects, and participation.
F	Unsatisfactory: work, attendance (more than two absences), projects, and participation

Attendance:

Two or more unexcused absences from class may result in failure. Two unexcused late arrivals, or early departures will be marked as the equivalent of one absence. Absence from a class is not an excuse for skipping a tutorial, reading assignment, or posting an assignment. You are fully responsible for completing work.

Readings:

Readings will be from Nic Collins' Handmade Electronic Instruments: The Art of Hardware Hacking as well as supplementary readings that will be linked from the syllabus. You may utilize the printers in class to download hard copies of web-based content if you prefer. Critiques and discussion will frequently be initiated from various topics covered in the readings – in other words, please use the concepts you read about in discussion of fellow students’ work.

Materials:

You will be expected to purchase components as needed for your projects. These components may include an Arduino-USB micro-controller, for $31.95 by week 8 of our class. Please budget @ $50 for parts over the course of the semester.

Supplies:

Please bring to each class a storage media of your choice. I recommend a jump drive from the bookstore, in lieu of this, an ipod, or server space, or 1-2 CD-R(s) – Recordable Compact Discs (700 MB) will suffice. You’ll probably go through many of them, for both this and other digital classes. You might also want to bring in a sharpie to label your CD’s.

It is essential that all work done in class be saved to either your jump drive, CD-R, server space, ipod, etc… at the conclusion of class. There will be many, many other students using these computers and anything saved on them will be permanently removed shortly after the conclusion of class.

Food and Drink in the Computer Labs:

No.

ADA COMPLIANCE:

In MICA's efforts to provide the highest possible quality educational experience for every student, MICA maintains compliance with the requirements of the ADA and Section 504. Any student who has, or suspects he or she may have, a disability and wants to request academic accommodations must contact Dr. Kathryn Smith at the Learning Resource Center, 443 695-1384 or email at ksmith@mica.edu immediately.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

MICA has developed policies and practices to ensure a healthful environment

and safe approaches to the use of equipment, materials, and processes. It is

the mutual responsibility of faculty and students to review health and

safety standards relevant to each class at the beginning of each semester.

Students should be aware of general fire, health, and safety regulations

posted in each area and course specific polices, practices, and cautions.

Students who have concerns related to health and safety should contact

Quentin Moseley, Environment Health and Safety Coordinator at 410 225 0220

or email at qmoseley@mica.edu

Online Resources:

Make Magazine

instructables

Leah Beuchley

Electronic Art, Artists, and Projects List

Weekly Schedule

Week 1

Introduction to course and lab.

Please send an email with the account you want us to use to both me (jrouvelle@mica.edu, and sam: jss@problemboard.com). We will set up a group this week and invite you.

Sam Sheffield will be working with us. If you have technical and/or lab questions that come up during the week and you feel you would like to sit down with him to go over some things send him and email and make an appointment: jss@problemboard.com

Preamble:

Building circuits requires patience, attention to detail, and a willingness to follow directions. During the first few weeks of class we (sam and I) ask that you take your time and build the circuits we present to you, rather than develop your own projects during class. You will have plenty of time for inventing your own things and will benefit greatly from acquiring certain fundamental skills that will be covered over the first weeks of class.

Negative Empircism: learning about what it is by carefully observing what it isn't.

Tinkering is the art of negative empiricism, and it requires practice, and a willingness to critique one's own theories and beliefs to achieve a more accurate understanding of what is really happening.

If we were in engineering school I would tell you to assume that your first circuits will not work as you anticipate.

By carefully studying why they don't work, you will learn how to create things that do.

In other words, to succeed in this medium you must Fail early, and Fail often, and to maintain your sanity you must cultivate a trust in this process.

This medium is one of the greatest teachers of negative empiricism (a highly useful concept) that I know.

The www is often a teacher of positive emiricism (or naive empiricism) where one generates a theory and readily locates pages of corroborating evidence to 'prove' the theory.

Life, as usual, is a mixture of both, but we will focus our attention on handmade electronics to develop our capacity for negative empiricism.

In class project:

Square Wave Oscillator w/ 4093., ***for audio output substitute .022uf capacitors!!! and its' cousin bleep-bleep

Here's an entire book on projects with the 4093 NAND gate. Check out Chapter 2, page 32 for a 'simple' audio oscillator

Materials will be provided.

Goals:

Reading a circuit diagram.

Understanding Polarity.

Breadboarding a circuit.

Using a Multimeter to check polarity and continuity.

Using a wire stripper.

Assigment:

Buy Nic's Book: Handmade Electronic Instruments: The Art of Hardware Hacking ,

Read: Fail early, Fail often!

Mark Allen's DC Basics

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Week 2

Audio Oscillator with the 4093.

Various Audio Projects from Nic's book.

Soldering/Potentiometers.

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Week 3

Today we will continue with Nic’s Book, connecting the 4093 Square Wave Generator to the 4040 Binary Counter.

Here’s an Amplifier Circuit:

Low Power Audio Amplifier Using the LM386 ***If we don’t have enough 386s, some of you will use the LM358 , pay close attention to the pin diagram of the LM358, as it differs from the LM386

I will provide you with parts, please build the amplifier on your long breadboards along with the other circuitry.

The output of your 4093 Square Wave Generator and/or the Output from the 4040 Binary Counter will be the input for the Amplifier.

Beyond Class:

Using switches (we have a lot of them in the closet in BR 212) figure out how to toggle between different inputs of the 4040 Binary Counter.

***Field Trip! To Fox 415….

Today at noon we will go hear a brief lecture on wearable technology and fashion from Bradley Quinn.

Bio:

Bradley Quinn is an author and curator based in New York, where he has presented the work of designers and architects in a variety of exhibition venues. His books include Techno Fashion, The Fashion of Architecture, Chinese Style, Scandinavian Style, Mid-century Modern and Designed in Sweden.

Current projects include a book on material intelligence for
publication by Thames & Hudson in 2007, and a report on the role of apparel and textiles in disaster relief for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

We’ll take lunch at 1pm.

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