Syllabus

Resources

You have three amazing TAs (Alyx Burns '17, Shani Mensing ’15 and Eva Snyder '17) who will hold drop-in hours. In addition, Luke Jaeger (CS department, Technical Project Admin) and Nick Baker (LITS liaison to CS) will be supporting the course.

You also have access to a 3D printer!

Contents

• • basic electronics (e.g., circuits, Ohm’s law)

  • microcontroller programming (e.g., Arduino platform)

• sensors and other components (e.g., photoresistors, servo motors)

  • design process

  • written and oral communication skills

Requirements

Because of the hands-on nature of this course, you must attend

• • weekly lab sections

  • weekly discussion sections

If extenuating circumstances result in your needing to miss a lab or discussion section, please email the instructor as soon as possible to discuss possible accommodations!

For approximately the first third of the semester, you will have weekly assignments (usually due Wednesdays at the start of lab, 1:15pm) based on the preceding lab. 

The rest of the semester will be devoted to an interactive technology project that you will pitch, design and develop. Your project will have two parts, each taking about 4 weeks. Your pitch process will include a 90 second “elevator pitch” as well as a written design document. 

Throughout the semester:

• you will be building and maintaining a personal web site that documents your progress

• you will participate in various modules that expose you to other technologies (which you may wish to incorporate into your project along the way)

Grading

Attendance

As noted before, class attendance is extremely important due to the hands-on nature of the course. You are responsible for material presented in discussion and lab. If you miss a class, please ask a classmate for notes and see me or the TAs with any subsequent questions on covered material.

Honor code

REMINDER: WE ARE UNDER THE HONOR CODE! While I encourage you to:

• • Talk to your class mates about the labs, projects and assignments

  • Organize study groups

  • Consult other books or the internet for inspiration and clarifications

  • Ask the instructor or TAs to help you find bugs in your code

I also have to remind you that:

• • All the work that you submit should be yours: it is against the honor code to have somebody else do work for you (including TAs or tutors) or to copy it from somewhere else (including books or the internet).

  • You MUST acknowledge classmates or TAs that you worked with for anything you turn in – this should be done as a comment at the top of any written work.

  • Since I expect that you will use the internet heavily for tutorials from the “makerspace,” you MUST acknowledge any tutorials you consulted or followed for your projects. List links to these on your web site's page for the specific assignment/project/module. If you used or adapted code, place a comment at the top with the source of the original code.

If you are at all unsure about what is acceptable, just ask!

Access, equipment and software

You will be given (or should already have)

• • An account on the Computer Science network, which is different from the MHC network

  • Access to the Clapp 201 and 202 labs, which are equipped with Macs on the Computer Science network

Please be respectful of the space and help keep the labs clean!

Textbook (or lack thereof)

Instead of a textbook, you may be required to purchase hardware or other components for your project.