No longer constrained to the screens of our computers and mobile devices, digital experiences are increasingly becoming completely integrated with our “In Real Life” experiences as our physical environment and the objects that surround us gain sensing and responsive capabilities and an increased connectivity. Nearly any object or environment we inhabit can become a responsive digitally enhanced experience. The advance of these technologies is coming at an opportune time as we have an increasing desire to enable the same speed and scale of responsiveness and adaptability in our physical environment as we have come to know through the Web and social media. Decades from now, we very well may look back on our current era and consider it to be absurd that interaction, architectural and industrial design were once separate practices. This studio will be an active pursuit of that fast approaching future. The roles of sensing the environment and people’s actions within it and the use of actuators and physical affordances will be explored while developing a deeper understanding of how the digital and physical worlds relate through interaction.

In this studio, students will learn to apply their growing repertoire of skills to real-world tangible objects and environments that enhance the user / inhabitants experience. Students will work to develop a personal perspective on physical computing and an understanding of the challenges and opportunities when designing at the intersection of the physical and digital, while maintaining a human-centered perspective.

The focus of this studio will be building. Through a combination of individual and team-based development, the process for each of the 3 projects during the semester will be a rapid progress through iterative digital and physical prototyping. The course prerequisites are a solid foundation of programing with some physical computing and electronics experience, arduino or similar.