Topic outline

  • DOM-E5043 - Physical Interaction Design

    Physical Interaction Design course aims to explore and investigate the tools, concepts and practices for planing and building new interactions with digital environments.The course focuses on multimodal interaction as lenses to discuss approaches and methodologies for the creation of interactive installations, physical media/image/sound projects and artistic strategies for the creation of experimental musical compositions.

    With a hands on approach this course invites students to experiment with sensor technologies, micro controllers and thus confront fundamental concepts and technical issues faced during the design of digital products, services and interactive arts.

    Equally important part of the course is that we dedicate half of the contact hours for project work in the classroom where the lecturer supports students by giving sufficient guidance, feedback and tutoring. The students submit their project ideas / proposals and during this course they develop; their problem solving abilities, design decisions, depth of understanding through the challenges they face in developing and implementing their projects, aesthetic and originality of their projects’, analysis of their project components, user interface design strategies in relation to the production of the project, code design quality in terms of the ways they use physical-interaction understanding to come up and develop alternative solutions for their idea generation and project implementation. At the end of the course, students present their projects and they receive feedback / comments both from the lecturer and students. Each student project work is assessed with the criteria on the above-mentioned objectives of the course.


     Location:

    G014 Mekatroniikka, Väre


    Students List:




  • Materials



  • Assignments

  • Schedule

    ------------------------------- WEEK 1------- -------------------
    Tue 17/11/2020  09:00 – 12:45  

    • Introduction to Physical Interaction Design
    • Human Computer Interaction applied to musical projects 
      • Examples, introducing Bela

    • What tools do we have available? 
      • Microcontrollers and embedded computers
      • Sensors and actuators
      • Bela
    • Getting started with Bela 
      • Bela 101
      • Building our first project and making our first sound
      • Familiarising ourselves with the hardware and pin labelling
      • Working with Pure Data and Bela
      • Pure Data recap
    • Digital output 
      • LEDs
      • Patterns of flashing
    • Digital input
      • Button
      • Receiving feedback: printing
      • Debouncing
      • Simple drum machine
    • Analog input 
      • Handles and buttons, discrete and continuous control
      • One to One Mapping
      • Potentiometer & Force Sensing Resistor
      • Treating analog sensors as audio rate signals
      • Mapping
      • Smoothing with audio filters
      • Receiving feedback: printing, scope

    • Analog Output
      • Dimmer switch with Bela
      • Fading LEDs in time with an LFO
      • Ramp generators
      • Envelopes

    Wed 18/11/2020  09:00 – 12:45
    • AM Synthesis:
      • Controlling an AM synthesizer with analog inputs.
      • Ring modulation
      • Visualising sound with analog outputs
      • Pitch quantisation
    • FM Synthesis:
      • FM synthesis control with a Force Sensing Resistor, a Light Dependent Resistor and a potentiometer.
      • Triggering actions with thresholds
      • Sequencing events with Bela
      • Creating abstractions on Bela
    • Drum Synthesis:
      • Mixing analog and digital inputs
      • Sequencing counter
      • Gating events with a digital button
    • Physical Modelling I - A Bela Rubber Duckie:
      • Physical behaviors over time
      • A FSR rubber duckie
      • Velocity calculation
      • One To Many mapping
      • Complex projects in Bela

    • Delays:
      • Live sound input
      • Feedback delay
    • Sampling:
      • Loading samples
      • Triggering samples based on sensor input
      • Scrubbing through the samples with an analog sensor
      • Recording sound with Bela
      • Loop and overdub controls.


    Thu 19/11/2020  09:00 – 12:45  
    • Phiscal Modelling II - Piezo discs and karplus strong synthesis
      • Building a virtual guitar

    • Capacitive sensing with Bela
      • Conductive materials

    • DIY pressure sensors - Introduction to velostat pressure sensors
      • Sensor manufacture
      • Signal treatment
    • Accelerometer analog sensor:
      • Measuring acceleration
      • Calculating Swing Velocity
      • Many to One mapping
      • 3-State systems
      • Many to Many mapping

    Fri 20/11/2020  09:00 – 12:45
    • Communication with Bela
      • Graphical user interfaces
      • Receiving MIDI
      • Using Bela as a MIDI device
      • OSC

    • Preparing projects for standalone operation
    • Project ideas pitch ( 5min / student )
    •  Questions and revision of the course topics


    ------------------------------- WEEK 2--------------------------

    Mon 23/11/2020  09:00 – 12:00

    Workshop Facilities w/ Janne Ojala


    Tue 24/11/2020  09:00 – 12:00

    • Designing and building realistically your student projects w/ Janne Ojala

    Wed 25/11/2020  09:00 – 12:00
    •  Project work and Tutoring


    Thu 26/11/2020  09:00 – 12:00 
    • Project work and Tutoring

    Fri 27/11/2020  09:00 – 12:00

    • Project work and Tutoring

    ------------------------------- WEEK 3--------------------------------


    Tue 01/12/2020  - 09:00 – 12:00
    • Project work and Tutoring

    Wed 02/12/2020 - 09:00 – 12:00
    • Project work and Tutoring

    Thr  03/12/2019 -    09:00 - 12:00

    • Project work and Tutoring

    Fri  04/12/2019 -    09:00 - 12:00

    • Project work and Tutoring
    • FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS
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