HCI Engineering Group

6.810
Engineering Interactive Technologies (fall 2020)

Class content: Provides instruction in building cutting-edge interactive technologies, explains the underlying engineering concepts, and shows how those technologies evolved over time. Students use a studio format (i.e., extended periods of time) for constructing software and hardware prototypes. Topics include interactive technologies, such as multi-touch, augmented reality, haptics, wearables, and shape-changing interfaces. In a group project, students build their own interactive hardware/software prototypes and present them in a live demo at the end of term.

Previous Offerings: If you are interested to see the course schedule for the previous offering, you can find it here fall 2018 (note that I was on sabbatical fall 2019 so the course was not offered last year). While 2020 will build onto this material, we are significantly revising the materials and will post updates here soon.

Requirement to be on Campus in Fall 2020:

Note that this is an on-campus lab course. What this means is that some course activities, such as fabricating prototypes, will happen on campus. Thus, in fall 2020 this course is not open for students who cannot be on campus or who do not feel comfortable coming in to participate in workshop activities. We are sorry that there is no option to participate remotely but the learning objectives for this course cannot be achieved without hands-on activities done in a workshop environment. For the students who are on campus and are considering taking this course, our current plan is that all the lectures will be done online and all labs will be done remotely from your room, but that whenever you need to fabricate something for a lab or pset you will come to the workshop for short periods of time, then take the fabricated parts and return back to your room. When you come in to fabricate parts, there will be a member of the teaching staff with you in the workshop to explain how the fabrication process works. For students who need to quarantine for short periods of time (e.g. 1-2 weeks), we will fabricate the parts for you according to your design file and bring them to your dorm. Lectures will be synchronous. Labs will be asynchronous, i.e. you work on them from your dorm room and come to an OH in person or virtually if you need help. For the group project, we will continue social distancing, i.e. you will mostly work on the group project individually from your dorm room and reach out to team members via zoom, slack and other communication channels. If the prototype only has low-cost parts, each team member will build their own copy. If the prototype involves expensive parts, there is an option that only one or two team members build a hardware prototype and the other team members work on the software for the project.

Communication

In class: Zoom and Slack (workspace: 6810-2020)
Outside of class: Piazza

Grading

Lab Check-Offs and Home Works (20%)
Problem Sets (40%)
Open Ended Project (40%)
no exams or nano quizzes

Tutorials:

Laser Cutting

recommended drawing programs
how to create a drawing for laser cutting
how to operate the laser cutter

Spraying

Schedule

This class is in the process of being significantly revised for fall 2020. Below we link some content we are currently developing but all of these pages are work in progress.

Week	Date	Room	Class	Notes
1	Sept 2 (wed)	Zoom ID: 954 5595 1363, dorm	Sign-Up: Fill out the Sign-Up Sheet Lecture: Course Overview (15 min) Lecture: Printed Electronics: Fabrication (45 min) Lecture: Finding Future Interactive Technologies (15 min) (please wait with HW until we confirm your enrollment) HW released: Find Your Favorite 5 projects from UIST HW released: Create 2 slides to introduce yourself, use template in student google drive folder	inform students about enrollment + setup google drive folders
	Sept 4 (fr)	Zoom ID: 954 5595 1363, dorm	HW due 12.30pm: Create 2 slides to introduce yourself Lecture: Printed Electronics: Sensors (40 min) Lecture: Laser Cutting: Materials, Tips & Tricks (10 min) Introduce Yourself: 1 min per person (35 min) HW released: Form a team of 4 students HW released: Design and Laser Cut Business Card
2	Sept. 7 (mon)	dorm	HW1 due: Find Your Favorite 5 projects from UIST No lectures this week: Work on Lab 1 + Lab 2, and Homework Laser Cut Business Card remotely, they are all due this friday. Come to one of the OH's below to fabricate your parts or have any questions answered in person or on slack/zoom.
	before starting Lab 1 + Lab 2	dorm	Pick-Up Hardware: Find Location and Time here Install: Arduino with ESP Board Manager Install: Processing and do the getting started tutorial
	Lab 1 + Lab 2	dorm	Lab 1 release: Conductive Inkjet Printing + Sensing Touch Lab 2 release: Microcontroller Sending Data + Processing
	Fabrication/Office Hours Lab 1 + Lab 2	in-person at EDS (38-501)	Please book an OH slot here. OH: Monday (Sept 7): 3 - 8pm (staff: Junyi, Joshua) OH: Wed (Sept 9): 1 - 2.30pm (staff: Stefanie, Michael) OH: Friday (Sept 11): 1 - 2.30pm (staff: Stefanie, Junyi) In the OH, remind us that we show you the EDS space.
	Sept 11 (fr)	dorm	Lab 1 due: Conductive Inkjet Printing + Sensing Touch Lab 2 due: Microcontroller Sending Data + Processing HW due: Design and Laser Cut Business Card Pset1 released: Multi-Touch: Circuit Design HW released: Decide Spray Order for Lab 3 next week HW released: Read (1) Skintillates + (2) Duoskin, fill form
3	Sept 16 (wed)		Find Team Partners due: Let us know your team Lecture: Printed Electronics: Actuation, Display, Communication Lecture: On-Body User Interfaces Group Project Idea released: Brainstorming Ideas for your Wearable Device (min. 10 ideas), add one idea per slide in 'idea presentation' of your team's google drive folder)
	Sept 18 (fr)	probably no class	Pset1 due: Multi-Touch Pad Circuit Design + Assembly HW3 due: Read (1) Skintillates + (2) Duoskin, then fill form Lab 3: Fabrication and Control of EL Displays
4	Sept 23 (wed)		Lecture: Brain-Computer Interfaces and Electro-Muscle Stimulation
	Sept 25 (fr)		Lab 4: Attaching Electronics on 3D Surfaces Before Doing HW4 Install: Blender 3D Editor HW4 released: Do Blender Getting Started Tutorials HW5 released: Read PrintPut Paper	Fall Career Fair
5	Sept 30 (wed)		Lecture: Brain-Computer Interfaces and Electro-Muscle Stimulation HW released: Sign up for a 3D Printing Slot for lab 5
	Oct 2 (fr)		Install: Ultimaker Cura Slicer HW4 due: Do Blender Getting Started Tutorials HW5 due: Read PrintPut Paper Lab 5: Conductive 3D Printing	Add Date
6	Oct 7 (wed)		Lecture: Augmented Reality Technology HW released: Sign up for a Sewing Slot for lab 6
	Oct 9 (fr)		Group Project Idea due: finish slide deck with 10 ideas, one idea per slide TAs: check slide links before class if they all work. Present Ideas due: present top 3 ideas in class using your idea slides (3 min per team = 45 min TAs: after class, send feedback on recommended ideas to students. add one more activity for 45 min
7	Oct 14 (wed)		Lecture: Haptics and Force Feedback
	Oct 16 (fr)		Technical Proposal due: finalize technical proposal (use google docs in your team's google drive folder here)
8	Oct 21 (wed)		Lecture: Fabrication	virtual UIST
	Oct 23 (fr)		Milestone 1 due: milestone 1 due, please use Handbrake to compress videos before you put them in your google drive Staff Feedback for Project: 9 teams x 20 min per team Lab 9: Visualizing a Project Idea: Rotoscoping Photos add one more activity for 45 min	virtual UIST
9	Oct 28 (wed)		Lecture: Health Sensing
	Oct 30 (fr)		Milestone 2 due: milestone 2 staff feedback (9 teams x 20 min) Lab 10: Taking High Quality Photos of your Project add one more activity for 45 min
10	Nov 4 (wed)	no class	no class
	Nov 6 (fr)		Milestone 3 due: milestone 3 staff feedback (9 teams x 20 min) Lab 11: Making a High Quality Video of your Project add one more activity for 45 min
11	Nov 11 (wed)		Midterm Presentation: 5 minutes per team (9 teams x 5 min = 45 min), use the 'midterm presentation' slide template in your team's google drive folder) add one more activity for 45 min	Veterans day
	Nov 13 (fr)		Milestone 4 due: milestone 4 staff feedback (9 teams x 20 min) Lab 12: Summarizing your Project on a Website add one more activity for 45 min	Nov 19: Drop Date
12	Nov 18 (wed)		Lecture: Sound Interfaces
	Nov 20 (fr)		Milestone 5 due: milestone 5 staff feedback (9 teams x 20 min)
13	Nov 25 (wed)	students not on campus	no class, Extended Thanksgiving Break	no assignments can be due
	Nov 27 (fr)	students not on campus	no class, Extended Thanksgiving Break	no assignments can be due
14	Dec 2 (wed)	students not on campus
	Dec 4 (fr)	students not on campus	Milestone 6 due: milestone 6 staff feedback (9 teams x 20 min)	there may be max one assignment due between today and the end of the last class
15	Dec 9 (wed)	students not on campus	Final Presentations due: 7 min per team (9 teams x 10 minutes), use final presentation slides in your google drive Team Reflection due: please email a 1 page reflection document to the teaching team, please use the questions in this document here	last day of classes: Dec 10

Course Tools

Zoom |

slack |

Piazza |

Google drive

Ordering Parts

enter parts into this spreadsheet

Staff

Prof. Stefanie Mueller (Instructor)
Michael Wessely (Co-Instructor)
Junyi Zhu (TA)
Mihir Trivedi (LA)
Joshua Verdejo (Student-LA)

Enrollment: limited to 35 students

Where: on Zoom, at EDS (38-501) and at IDC (N52-337)

When: Wed and Fri 1.00 - 2.30pm
Prerequisits: 6.08 and one of 6.031, 6.111, 6.115,
or instructor permission
Class Type: AUS, AUS2, II (Independent Inquiry)

Office Hours

For grading + logistics questions, go to an instructor OH.
For engineering questions, go to an TA/LA OH.

Instructor OH: Please send Prof. Mueller an email and she is happy to setup a meeting with you.

Project Materials

every student gets $50 (team of 2 students = $100)
fill out this google spreadsheet to order parts

Administrative

Questions during the course:

before coming to an OH, please post on Piazza
OHs are run on the 6.810 slack workspace, i.e. during an OH the teaching team will be online on slack
once you posted on slack during the OH, we will call you via slack video messaging
go to a TA OH for building oriented questions
go to an instructor OH for logistical / grading questions
please do not send us emails

Late Policy:

labs: labs have an automatic one week extension, i.e. if you didn't finish lab1 during the class time (Sept. 11), you have until the following week when we do lab 2 (Sept. 18) to complete it; labs build on each other so make sure you finish the previous lab before we do the next one to not fall behind. If the lab is still not completed after the one week extension, we apply the same point deduction as for psets (see below).
psets: 1-2 days late (20% off), 3-4 days late (40% off), 5-6 days late (60% off), 7 or more days late (80% off)
group project: no extensions, if one team member cannot make it the rest of the team needs to fill in, this applies to all milestones and the idea, midterm, and final presentation.
if you have to self-quarantine, are otherwise sick, or travel for a job interview, please see below for exceptions.

Self-Quarantine Policy:

if you have been asked to self-quarantine or if you feel you are showing any of the Covid-19 symptoms, please post privately Piazza to let us know that you cannot come in
rather than asking you to come in to fabricate your files, we will fabricate them for you and bring them to your dorm so you can continue working from your room once you feel better

Sick Policy:

ask your S3 dean to get in touch with us
post privately on Piazza and explain the circumstances

Leave Policy for Job Interviews:

if you cannot attend class because of a job interview, please post privately on Piazza and include the job interview invitation and airplane tickets or other proof of travel and we will try to accomondate you as much as possible

Collaboration Policy:

except for your group project, all labs and problem sets are individual efforts
your need to build all the hardware yourself, create all underlying manufacturing files yourself, and write all the code yourself
we use the same policy as 6.031 uses, you can read it in full detail here

Enrollment vs. Listener:

since this is a hands-on building class, we do not allow students to attend as Listeners
for fall 2020, we require students to be on-campus and be willing to come to the workshop for short periods of time to fabricate parts

6.810 Engineering Interactive Technologies (fall 2020)