Day 28: (Wed Dec 4) Final Review

Notes for 2019-12-04. See also the Fall 2019 Calendar.

Course Description Review

  1. The art and science of machines which evoke human delight through physical movement is founded on a balance of form and computation. This introductory physical computing course addresses the practical design and fabrication of robots, interactive gadgets, and kinetic sculptures.

  2. The emphasis is on creating experiences for human audiences through the physical behavior of devices which embody computation with mechanism, sensing, and actuation.

  3. Specific topics include basic electronics, elementary mechanical design, embedded programming, and parametric CAD.

  4. A key objective is gaining an intuitive understanding of how information and energy move between the physical, electronic, and computational domains to create a compelling behavior. The final projects are tested in the field on children and adults.

On this basis, we considered some foundational hypotheses:

  1. Computation provides a hidden process to complement physical behavior.

  2. Movement and behavior transforms and transcends form.

  3. Physical action evokes body empathy and physical intuition.

  4. Tangible behavior creates implicit, open-ended interaction.

On this basis, some key questions to resolve for each project:

  1. What is the essential interaction experiment of the piece?

  2. How the implementation balance physical, electronic, and computational domains?

Agenda

  1. Assignments

  2. In-class

    • 9:00-9:45 brief top-level discussion

    • 9:45-11:15 10 minutes per group

    • 11:15-11:20 final wrapup

    • Each group will briefly present their final objectives, summary of the actual work, and a few comments on specific successes and failures.

    • Everyone else will ask questions and provide their own perspective on the outcome.

    • Remember: it is more useful to simply provide your viewpoint on the behavior, appearance, and meaning of the work; specific suggestions on changes should be kept to a minimum.

    • Let’s keep closely to 10 minutes per group to stay on time. (review timer)