Syllabus for SVA MFA Interaction Design first year course, The Fundamentals of Physical Computing IXG-5380-A
Wednesdays 05:00 PM - 07:50 PM, IxD (3rd Floor)
Class schedule including session outlines, slides, readings and assignments.
Crystal Peñalosa (website): cpenalosa@sva.edu / Office Hours TBD
Daniel Ryan Johnston (website): djohnston2@sva.edu / Office Hours Mondays, 11am-12pm In person unless otherwise noted.
Kelin Carolyn Zhang (website): czhang15@sva.edu / Office Hours Schedule
This course is a practical, hands-on exploration of physical interaction for designers. Students will examine how to interface objects and installations with the viewer’s body and ambient stimuli, such as motion, light, sound and intangible data. Using the open-source Arduino platform, the class will move through electrical theory, circuit design, microcontroller programming and sensors, as well as more advanced output, including motors, video and intercommunication between objects. No previous programming or electronics experience is required.
- Construct Basic Electronic Circuits: Identify and assemble fundamental electronic components to build functional circuits.
- Design Interactive Experiences: Create interactive systems incorporating sensors, lights, sounds, and movements.
- Program and Troubleshoot Embedded Circuits using platforms such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi
- Fabricate Custom Enclosures: Design and produce enclosures using materials such as paper, wood, acrylic, and 3D printing.
- Integrate Digital Services: Connect physical projects to digital services and libraries, such as web APIs, Touchdesigner, Max/MSP, and p5.js
Participation is mandatory for this course. The success of your participation requires a thoughtful approach to the readings, assignments, and selected projects due the following class. Students will represent their thoughts and ideas clearly and articulately, interacting with the class through shared reflection, critique, and collaboration. All work, including sketches, research, papers, and digital files, are presented in the course.
Attendance: Participation in group discussions and collaborative assignments during workshop sections are an important part of the course. More than two unexcused absences and you risk failing the course. If you need to be absent for any reason, please give both instructors at least 24 hours of advanced notice via email.
Assignments: Each week you’re expected to review and practice materials in lab assignments, complete project assignments, and document your progress and questions in your Physical Computing blog. There will be two group projects for midterm and final, which you will show on Week 7 and Week 1.
Documentation: Blog posts are due 23:59, the Monday before each class. A good blog post should include ideation, design, circuit diagram/schematic, photos and videos of your process, and a showcase of the final result. Here’re a couple of example blogs from past students for inspiration: Young Kim (Notion), Awanee Joshi (Medium), Jueun Jeon (page in personal website)
Grading will be based primarily on effort and quality of assigned work (60%), research and practice outside of class (20%), and involvement in discussions and critiques (20%).
MFA Interaction Design uses a Pass/Fail scale for all classes. P+ can be awarded for exceptional work.
NOTE: Students must maintain a 3.0 GPA to stay in the graduate program (e.g., they must pass all classes).
Essential materials will be provided by SVA and are located on the Physical Computing Cart on the 3rd floor. Students have the option of buying additional materials to fulfill their project objectives. Some tools and consumable supplies will be available in the VFL (7th Floor) and in IxD’s studio.
Readings and resources are shared in the Readings&ResourcesFolder.
Technical - selections from:
- Charles Platt, Make: Electronics (2009)
- Tom Igoe & Dan O’Sullivan, Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers (2005)
- Tom Igoe, Making Things Talk: Practical Methods for Connecting Physical Objects (2007)
Design - selections from:
- Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (2002)
- Chris Crawford, The Art of Interactive Design (2002)
Weekly schedule will be updated here
In rare circumstances, students unable to complete required coursework in a given semester may receive the grade "Incomplete.” This decision is made by the instructor, student, and chair of the ixD program, and an Incomplete Grade form is generated and put on file with the department and the Registrar’s Office. This form is an agreement between the student and instructor specifying what work needs to be completed and when it is due. Any deviation from this agreement may result in a failing grade for the course. It is a student’s responsibility to follow up with the instructor and chair to have a grade changed from incomplete to pass.
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. All assignments must be the original work of the student, clearly distinguishing between their own ideas and those sourced from others. The MFA Interaction Design department defines plagiarism as follows:
- Generative AI Tools: The use of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, etc.) to create content (text, images, code, etc.) is permitted only if the student provides appropriate citations and clearly distinguishes between AI-generated content and their own work. Failure to do so constitutes academic dishonesty.
- Direct Copying: Reproducing four or more consecutive words from any written, oral, or online source without proper citation.
- Visual Reproduction: Copying drawings, illustrations, tables, charts, or graphs from any source without appropriate reference.
- Paraphrasing: Rewriting someone else’s theories, ideas, concepts, statistics, factual data, or words without proper citation.
Students found to have committed an act of academic dishonesty will receive a failing grade for the assignment in question. More serious or repeated violations will be addressed according to the procedures outlined in the SVA Handbook.
Graduate students must maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.0 in order to remain in good academic standing. Students who do not meet these minimum requirements will be placed on academic probation, receive a letter specifying the terms of probation, and have their work monitored by the department. Receiving an incomplete or failing grade can place a student on academic probation. Students on academic probation are not eligible for scholarship renewal or Two semesters on academic probation, or not fulfilling the conditions of the probation letter, may result in dismissal from SVA.
Students who do not meet course requirements will receive a Mid-Semester Unsatisfactory Evaluation. This form may be given to a student for excessive absences, failure to complete required work or assignments in a satisfactory manner, or failure to participate in classroom work and activity. A student will receive written notification of a Mid-Semester Unsatisfactory Evaluation, as will the Department Chair, and the Graduate Advisor.
In order to receive academic accommodations due to an impairment or disability, a student must first register with the Office of Disability Services (ODS). Students approved for accommodations will be given an ODS Accommodation Letter to submit to their instructors. If a student does not provide an ODS Accommodation Letter to their instructor, they will not be eligible to receive accommodations in that course. All instructors are required to adhere to SVA's policies regarding accommodations for students with disabilities. Students who have a need for academic accommodations, or suspect they may have an impairment or disability, should contact the ODS at 212.592.2282 or disabilityservices@sva.edu.
Students are expected to attend and be on time for all classes. There is not an option to attend classes remotely. Students who arrive ten minutes or more after class begins are marked as late. Three latenesses equal one absence. If a student arrives more than 30 minutes late for class they may be marked as absent. Missing more than three classes can result in a failing grade for the course and potential academic probation.
No “Excused” Absences
No absences are considered excused for the purpose of this policy, regardless of the reason or an individual instructor's policy. This is an SVA policy upheld by our regional accreditors that requires a minimum number of instructional hours to receive academic credit.
Absences due to illness are not excused.
Students who are ill should not provide doctors' notes. If a student has extenuating health-related circumstances that may necessitate excessive absences the student may contact Disability Resources and Student Health and Counseling Services. Both offices may be able to provide support and grant accommodations for excessive absences. It is a student's responsibility to seek accommodations. Staff in these offices will contact ixD faculty and staff if any accommodations are to be granted.
Students may indicate their pronouns and preferred/chosen first name through MyServices; this information will then appear on class rosters (go to: https://myservices.sva.edu/Student/UserProfile and select “Edit Personal Identity”).
Please let your instructor know the preferred name and pronouns by which you would like to be referred, if that information does not already appear on the roster. A student’s chosen name and pronouns should be respected at all times.
Part of our class takes place at the Visible Futures Lab (VFL), a facility open to faculty and staff of SVA and all students of SVA graduate programs. Access to the VFL machines outside of the makerspace requires training and certification. Training sessions are offered for the wood shop, Shopbot (CNC gantry router), laser cutters and 3D printers and range from 1 to 3 hours.
All users must have an appointment before accessing the VFL (except classes). To book an appointment, visit the appointments page on VFL’s website.
More information visit the VFL’s website.
Fall 2025 students
*Please note that this is a living document. Check back here for changes.*
Week 1 Slides must be logged into your SVA account to access slides.
Welcome to physical computing! In this first session, we’ll overview the course, discuss interactive systems, and introduce basic electronics terminologies and concepts:
- What is physical interaction? Differences between implicit and explicit interactions.
- Examples of physical computing projects
- Electronics 101: Electricity, components, schematics, prototyping board, multimeter.
Slides
- Tom Igoe & Dan O’Sullivan, Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers. Read the following chapters:
- Sparkfun tutorials on Basic Electricity: Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm’s Law.
- Accessible fart machines and hand-less video game controllers | Holly Cohen
Assignments (due 9/9): Submission Form
- Use this form to complete the survey and submit a link to your blog.
- Create a blog. You can use your personal blog, or create a new one to document school work if you wish. Make sure to create a category or tag for “Physical Computing”, and assign it to all posts for this class.
- If possible, create your blog page and complete the survey by Friday (9/6) so that we can have more time to read those. Note: you might not have anything on your blog page at the time since the assignments are not due until Monday by 23:59.
- Lab: Practice with a multimeter
- Lab: Wires and Breadboards
- Download and install Arduino IDE
- Watch GitHub tutorial if help is needed when setting up your blog.
- Complete Paper Circuit.
- Post on Blog picture of circuit working (LED lights up). If there are any questions, post those as well.
- Project: Homemade Switch
Week 2 Slides must be logged into SVA account to access slides
- Midterm Discussion
- Homework discussion: share your switch projects, and go over questions about electronics or anything that came up.
- Switches: tangible and intangible
- Microcontroller boards, programming environment, programming loops and logics (Arduino Nano ESP32)
- In-class lab:
- Soldering Demo
- Digital Input + Output
- Solder header pins to Arduino Nano ESP32
- Reach out to VFL for support
- Must complete prior to starting Arduino Basics Lab.
- Lab: Arduino basics
- Lab: Variable resistor sensors
- Project: Enhanced homemade switch
- Week 2 Groups
- Next week, you all will be given time to present your switches to the class. Be sure to reach out with any questions.
- Remember to blog about your labs and projects, any questions, findings and more.
- Setup Laser Cutter training with the VFL. https://www.vfl.sva.edu/
- Write one page about a compelling problem facing a community you’d like to focus on. Try to provide as many details as possible about who the community is and their pain points. Use validating points such as survey data or media such as documentaries and news reports to ground your assumptions.
- We will read out a selection of compelling problems during the next class session.
- Submission Form: [Link]
- Brian W. Evans, Arduino Programming Notebook v6. Page 7-13: structure, variables, datatype
- What Is Community Anyway? By David M. Chavis & Kien Lee (Stanford Social Innovation Review)
- Switches Used in Accessible Gaming - AbleGamers
- Please refer to this article on how we define community: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/what_is_community_anyway
Week 3 Slides must be logged into SVA account to access slides
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In-class lab: Analog Input + Tone Output
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Homework discussion: share your enhanced switch projects, and go over questions about electronics or anything that came up.
- Be sure to bring your switches to class and be ready to demo for the class.
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A little more interfacing: Advanced sensors
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A little more programming: Operators, memory and variables, data types
Assignments (due 9/23): Submission Form
Conduct desk research on the community you want to focus on. The goal is to get smart quickly on a problem. Your research doesn’t have to be exhaustive at this point, we want you to get a sense of the landscape of your problem space. Find at least two sources of information or examples for each category listed below.
- Market Research: Understand what is currently available on the market. Understand who is driving innovation, who they market their solutions to, and, if available, how they design and build their products.
- Academic Research Papers: Using the resources available at the SVA Library, find academic research papers that are relevant to your community.
- News Reports: Find news reports from reputable news outlets that cover issues or problems that the community experiences.
- Thought Leaders: Identify people you’d like to talk to who are leaders in the community. We can help you get in touch with people for informational interviews as the semester progresses.
Mid-term Submission Form: [Link]
- Tom Igoe & Dan O’Sullivan, Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers.
- Ch 9 Sensing Movement. Skip the programming parts and focus on different criteria and methods of object sensing.
Week 4 Slides must be logged into SVA account to access slides
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Project 2 Share
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Review basic concepts, answer questions.
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Managing Sensor Data: Graphing over time, smoothing techniques, filtering out unwanted data
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Review Debugging Video
Assignments (due 9/30): Week 4 Submission Form
Note: Starting this week, please be sure to use the submission form that corresponds with each week.
Using any toolset you are comfortable with, develop a paper prototype. This prototype will be a design intervention that might solve part of a problem area that your community is facing. This prototype should build off the research and validating points from your last assignment to show existing problems. You may consider sketching out multiple lo-fidelity designs at this point. Make sure to clearly label the interactions and how someone progresses through your design from start to finish.
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Submission Form: [Link]
Reference Reading
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What is a paper prototype: https://www.justinmind.com/prototyping/paper-prototype
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Nielsen-Norman Group cutout kit: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/paper-prototyping-cutout-kit
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Figma Prototyping Kit: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1075811850250564922/paper-wireframe-kit
Week 5 Slides must be logged into SVA account to access slides
p5.WebSerial Slides Review these slides if you are using p5.WebSerial
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Midterm: Problem Definition, Sketches, and Presentation
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Serial Communication: Theory, protocols, data encoding
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Serial Communication Lab with p5.js
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Interfacing with different softwares
Assignments (due 10/7): Week 5 Submission Form
In order to do the labs, you will need to install Chrome or MS Edge.
- Lab: p5.js Lab
- Lab: Arduino Serial Output Lab (p5.SerialPort - App)
Building off your research and your paper prototypes, build an initial prototype using your ESP32 Feather microcontroller. This is a first version prototype and it will not be perfect or solve all parts of the problems your community is facing. At a minimum, your design needs to use the following: your ESP32 microcontroller, a sensor (e.g. gesture, motion, sound), and an actuator (e.g. motor, sound, light).
At this point in the class, it is acceptable to build something that works under certain conditions or constraints. Please be iterative and intentional with your design. Avoid building out a fully fleshed out design with an enclosure or attempt complex multiple sensor inputs.
Document the following for your build:
- The parts and components used
- The code used for your sketch
- The intended interaction (happy path) for your design
Take notes on the following:
- Troubleshooting you had to do, including the steps you took to address problems in your design
- Problems that came up in playtesting your design
- Any constraints such as power, connectivity, and failure points with the prototype
Reference Reading:
- Initial Prototypes - The First FitBit: https://spectrum.ieee.org/fitbit
- Example of my work with Raspbery Pi 3 and Python: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuPy-DXyvwP1_uuzpQx7pJ8gg4ft0RnslZ7wTNUNsGw/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.9sinclaykxg5
Week 6 Slides must be logged into SVA account to access slides
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Midterm Project Proposal
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Serial Communication Lab II
Assignments (due 10/14): Week 6 Submission Form
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Lab: There is no lab this week. Focus on Midterm.
Fabrication and Usability Testing: Midterm Assignment #5, due 23:59 Monday, October 12th
Give your prototype a physical form. Continue iterating on the prototype and develop an enclosure that reflects how your community might use it in practice. Please refer to the fabrication presentation for ways to use common materials and crafts to give your prototype a physical form.
Develop a usability testing guide for your prototype. Make a copy of the supplied testing worksheet and create testing tasks for your team. In the following week, you will use this guide to conduct unmoderated user testing with your peers.
Week 7 Slides must be logged into SVA account to access slides
Midterm projects development: we’ll come around and help each group in case you have any questions.
We have the VFL booked from 5-6:15pm so that we can spread out and utilize the tools that we have available.
- Present your Midterm Project. Please use this presentation structure, emphasizing the time spent on your live demo, summarizing what the team learned from playtesting, and upcoming design iterations.
Presentation Structure
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Questions for the class on feedback they'd like to receive [1 minute]
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Problem Definition [1 minute]
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Summary of research and discovery [2 minutes]
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Live demo [5 minutes]
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Key themes from playtesting feedback [3 minutes]
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Upcoming design iterations [2 minutes]
- Post Midterm Documentation on your Notion blog
- Complete Midterm Feedback Form
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How to synthesize feedback and turn insights into action
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Gathering Observational research
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Advanced Topics for inspiration
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Serial Communication Lab III: Handshaking, interfacing with sensors of your choice
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Review in-class lab
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We’re going to talk about Synchronous Serial next week, preview the introduction slides, and browse through Sparkfun’s tutorials on the 2 most common protocols, SPI and I2C.
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Homework discussion!
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Introduction to Synchronous Communication
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Demo and lab: I2C
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Ways to incorporate your PComp projects into your portfolio
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Continuing iterations on your project
- Group Check-ins with Crystal and Daniel
- Additional Support from Will and the VFL (Kyle & Melike).
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Final Project Format
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How to professionally install your project
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Venues to present your project after PComp 2024
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Work on your final project
- Final Project Run of show
- Project installation testing
- Create Checklist for Setup and Teardown
- Final Presentation
- Final Documentation Submission Link
- Due Friday, Dec. 13th at 23:59