Simple widget toolkit - workshop

 

Bid team: Ben Dalton (Innovation North), Paul Emery (Innovation North), Ben Halsall (Faculty of Arts and Society) {b.dalton, j.p.emery & b.halsall @leedsmet.ac.uk}

• you can also call Ben on 0113 81 27332

 

Amount: £ 3,310

 

TQEF funding to facilitate a staff workshop and three summer student projects

 

We would like to run a workshop for staff on the subject of 'Physical Computing'. The use of simple electronics to create input (sensors) and output (actuators) between a computer and the physical world has become a standard building block across disciplines ranging from Usability studies to Fine Art installation. There are a number of international, open-source projects to create kits that allow non-experts to quickly harness a toolkit of widgets (motors, lights, buttons, microphones, motion sensors, etc.). We will run a hands-on session aimed at a diverse staff group over a couple of days that practically demonstrates how these toolkits can be used, followed by a discussion on the role these resources can play in teaching.

 

The aim of the workshop is to provide an introduction to the potential of these physical computing tools for staff who are new to the subject and a focus for expertise and dialogue for those staff who are already using these techniques in their teaching or practice.

 

Action plan

 

May – choose and order kits, recruit current Leeds Met students for short summer project

July – Ben, Ben & Paul create workshop resource pack based on student experiences

Staff Dev Festival – run the 'Simple widget toolkit – workshop'

Sept – feedback experiences in incubator journal

 

Output

 

• Cross-faculty expertise and resource-base to support student projects already using these toolkits.

• A workshop resource pack on which teaching can be built.

• Purchasing recommendations based on the evaluation of the available kit resources.

• Documentation from three summer student projects

• Approx. 15 additional Leeds Met staff skilled in the concepts, resources and possibilities of physical computing,

• An incubator journal article documenting the scope of teaching possibilities.

 

Future directions

 

Having used these workshops to foster dialogue and test out teaching approaches with these kits, our longer-term goal is to establish a cross-faculty elective module on this subject for postgraduate (and perhaps advanced undergraduate) students. The demand for such a module is evident in the range of physical computing techniques already being used in student work both across the Creative Technology masters in Innovation North and the MA Art & Design courses in the Faculty of Arts and Society.

 

This bid addresses the TQEF Action Plan: 1i Support for research informed teaching projects & 1j Support for the writing and development of teaching materials that ensure the curriculum is informed and enhanced by research and scholarship

 

Good practice

 

In preparing a resource pack for this workshop, we intend to synthesise best practice from educational leaders in this subject area and our own work as contemporary creative media practitioners. We will also recruit three students to work for two weeks during their summer holidays with the kits – documenting their experiences (last summer, a similar Nuffield Science Bursary funded project resulted in the summer student producing a short film to document his experiments with the BBC Big Screen).

 

Resources and inspiration:

• http://www.arduino.cc/ – toolkit community

• http://www.ladyada.net/rant/ – DIY electronics kits.

• http://lowtech.propositions.org.uk/ - a guide to making toys into electronic tools

 

• http://fab.media.mit.edu/#top – the MIT media lab class 'How to Make (almost) Anything'

• http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/ – the ITP's excellent 'Physical Computing' resources

• http://www.nastypixel.com/prototype/workshops/usable-witchery-venice/

• http://futurecraft.media.mit.edu/

 

Some examples of our own work:

• http://www.benhalsall.co.uk/

• http://www.studioseen.co.uk/

• http://web.media.mit.edu/~bcd/

 

Costing

 

Total: £ 3,310

 

• £ 525 – workshop costs (refreshments, etc.) - based on estimates from CARES conferencing

• £ 1,000 – a range of evaluation kits. Selection panel:

  • Raffi Krikorian (http://www.synthesisstudios.com/about/raffi)

  • Amber Frid-Jimenez (http://web.mit.edu/vap/people/faculty/faculty_frid.html)

  • Carlos Rocha - Honda robotics research scientist

  • Limor Fried (http://www.ladyada.net/bio/index.html)

• £ 1,785 – three students for 2 weeks paid summer 'research assistance' – experimenting and documenting the kits