SO.4 – Obligatory Seminar 4
Introduction to Programming and Physical Computing

Faculty: Ángel Muñoz, Cristian Rizzuti

The Introduction to Programming and Physical Computing course will give students an essential introduction to the world of open source programming languages and physical computing. In 7 weeks students will simultaneously learn basic programming and physical computing concepts. This will equip students with the necessary hardware / software to integrate interfaces, visualizing methods, data sensing, and actuations to conduct more advanced research and architectural proposals with embedded technology. We will start the Arduino IDE and microcontroller as a platform to create devices that interact with their environment using sensors and actuators. Next, students will be introduced to the basics of the Processing language, to generate interactive media and visualized data in the digital domain. The course will conclude with an exercise in combining Arduino with Processing, as students will be pushed to create a synchronous and meaningful interaction between the physical and digital realms. Students are similarly encouraged to use the code based tools to explore data visualization and physical computing as applied to their studios, in processes that they can integrate in their projects in following semesters.