Interactive Device DesignCornell

Certificate Program

Interactivity, by definition, is reciprocal activity, as interactive devices are designed to enable input and response between a user and a system. This course gives you firsthand experience with the basic building blocks that make up interactive devices. You will begin by walking through a course kit and identifying the function of each component. You will then explore step-by-step methodologies for analyzing circuit diagrams, physically assembling circuits, and programming interaction.

Through activities, you will practice analyzing circuits, assembling electronic circuits, and writing code, acquiring tools and best practices along the way. By the end of this course, you will have the necessary foundation to build and program the electronic circuits critical to interactive devices.

Due to the applied nature of this program, you will be sent a kit of electrical components and microcontrollers before the start of your course.

In this course you will integrate external components into Arduino circuits. You will start by physically connecting components to the microcontroller, and then move on to the business of sorting out the code needed to make the microcontroller and the external components such as LEDs and sensors communicate in a fluid way. This will introduce you to libraries and sample code, and you will have the opportunity to expand your coding skills by adapting existing code written by others.

Activities in this course are focused on creating hardware-software interfaces that allow the microcontroller to utilize external input and output components in interactive devices.

The practical work culminates in a final project in which you will write a program that uses the Arduino to monitor a sensor input and control an output, with your choice of sensor and output components.

Due to the applied nature of this program, you will be sent a kit of electrical components and microcontrollers before the start of your course.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Designing a Simple Interactive System

In this course you will explore how to use complex sensing and display components with your microcontroller board. You will continue to become acquainted with some of the exciting sensors and other components available to you when you want to design a new system.

Another main theme in this course is designing interactive behaviors using state diagrams. Behind every great user interface, there is a well-conceived and well-implemented diagram that describes what states the system gets into and how the system transitions from one state to another as the user interacts with the device.

In the course project, you will explore a variety of sensors and a graphical display. Hand in hand with this, you will develop greater fluency in the use of software- and hardware-based modules, which will enable you to approach new components that come onto the market and understand how to use them and their associated software.

Due to the applied nature of this program, you will be sent a kit of electrical components and microcontrollers before the start of your course.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Designing a Simple Interactive System
• Expanding Interactive Systems With Devices and Libraries

In this course you will go beyond output devices that simply display information to output devices that involve physical movement. Actuators are the components of interactive devices that act on the world. You will learn about servo motors and other actuators that can be incorporated into your interactive devices.

Some actuators, such as motors, can draw heavy currents at times. In order to use these actuators you will need to work out the power requirements for your device. In this course you will learn some of the basics of battery selection and power management.

There are a number of practical activities involving the Arduino and various external components, and during these practical sessions you will deepen your prototyping and debugging skills. These activities lead up to the final project, in which you will design and build a physical interactive device of your own choosing.

Due to the applied nature of this program, you will be sent a kit of electrical components and microcontrollers before the start of your course.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Designing a Simple Interactive System
• Expanding Interactive Systems With Devices and Libraries
• Designing Complex Sensing and Functions in Interactive Systems

In this course you will start to use the Raspberry Pi for the first time. The Raspberry Pi is like a small version of a regular computer except that you can choose all the components that you want to use with it. You can connect your self-built circuits to it in much the same way that you do with the Arduino.

In this course you will learn how it is possible to add other devices such as microphones, speakers, displays to the Raspberry Pi. When adding external devices, it is important to find and incorporate the associated software to drive them, so you will learn how to do this through a series of practical exercises. In the project you will design your own interactive device using both the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino.

Due to the applied nature of this program, you will be sent a kit of electrical components and microcontrollers before the start of your course.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Designing a Simple Interactive System
• Expanding Interactive Systems With Devices and Libraries
• Designing Complex Sensing and Functions in Interactive Systems
• Building Actuated Interactive Devices

In this course you will develop an interactive Raspberry Pi device that communicates with other devices across the internet, and uses cutting edge technology like speech synthesis and computer vision. For the final project of this course you will build a system of your own design that uses these new technologies.

The course brings into play all the skills you have learned in previous courses. It allows you to gain experience with the complex process of designing, prototyping, and debugging a system with distributed, networked components. You will experience firsthand the challenges of developing a device from a concept to a fully functional prototype that has the internet connectivity that is expected of marketable Internet of Things devices today.

Due to the applied nature of this program, you will be sent a kit of electrical components and microcontrollers before the start of your course.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Designing a Simple Interactive System
• Expanding Interactive Systems With Devices and Libraries
• Designing Complex Sensing and Functions in Interactive Systems
• Building Actuated Interactive Devices
• Designing Advanced Interactive Devices