Examination arrangement

Course content

The course gives an introduction in how to create interactive products and user experiences with technology, computers, sensors, and actuators. The course has the following content:

- Basic concepts about software and hardware, new media art, multimedia content like pictures, video, and sound
- Open source and open content
- Development cycles of prototyping and evaluation
- Methods about how to put together hardware components such as processors, sensors, and actuators
- How to program interactive behavior
- Organisation of multimedia content like pictures, video, and sound.
- Basic evaluation procedures grounded on both aesthetic appreciation and technical quality.
- Descriptions about interactive user experiences

Learning outcome

Knowledge:
- how to make products interactive with hardware such as sensor, aktuatorer and code
- how to make next generation of interactive user experiences
- how Internet of Things (IoT) works

Skills:
- put together hardware such as processors, sensors and actuators.
- retrieve data from sensors and program actuators
- make products interactive and internet connected
- program multimedia content such as images, video and sound
- use open source code and open access content

General qualifications:
- collaborate in writing good code
- make better interactive products with an iterative design process with prototyping and user testing

Learning methods and activities

There will be a combination of lectures and project work. The students will have to complete individual assignments and a group based project. The individual work is mandatory and consist of the implementation and presentation of an assignment given by the teacher. The group based project is a relatively open assignment where the students shall apply a classic iterative design process with the following phases: - User studies - Idea and concept development - Prototyping - Usability testing - Implementation The final product will be exhibited and presented. In addition the students will submit the code, a video and a final report describing the process and solution. The workload for group project will be 70% of the entire workload. Students will be encouraged to submit their group projects to local, national and international art, design and technology competitions. The individual assignments have to be passed. The group-based project will be graded. The mark will count 100%.

Further on evaluation

Retake of the course will require new participation/deliverables in all activities.

Specific conditions

Recommended previous knowledge

Limited to students of Industrial Design Engineering.

Required previous knowledge

TDT4110 - Information Technology, Introduction

Course materials

All necessary course materials will be available on NTNU's learning management system. All necessary hardware will be available to students during the course. Suggestet reading: Joshua Noble. Programming Interactivity: A Designer’s Guide to Processing, Arduino, and Openframeworks. O’Reilly Media, 1 edition, July 2009, pages 712. Massimo Banzi, Getting Started with Arduino, O'Reilly Media / Make, December 2008, Pages 128. Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Getting Started with Processing, A Quick, Hands-on Introduction, O'Reilly Media / Make, June 2010, Pages 208.