CS2948 Design Realization 2

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CS294-8 Design Realization 2

• John Canny
• Fall 2003

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Course Information

• Instructor John Canny, jfc_at_cs.berkeley.edu529
  Soda Hall (and 354 HMMB)642-9955, (F) 643-1534
• Office hours this week Thursday 2-4pm.
• Lectures 1230-2pm Tu-Th here.

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Design Realization

• Is about the creation of smart and often
  networked artifacts.
• Is intended to form part of the Berkeley
  Institute of Designs core curriculum.
• The BID curriculum focuses on design of smart
  environments. This course covers realization of
  the elements of a smart environment.

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Preparation

• One of
• Design Realization 1 (Back and Harrison)
• ME 110 Intro. to product development
• CS160 User interface design, prototyping eval.
• Any 100-series architecture class

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Course Coverage

• 3D design
• Animation
• 3D physical prototyping
• Basic electronics
• Real-time programming
• Mechanics
• Optics
• Other suggestions?

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In detail

• Part 1 Images and Volumes
• Geometry and transformations
• Designing shapes (Maya)
• Historical Influences
• Improvisation in shape
• Part 2 Animation
• Trajectory interpolation
• Physics of movement
• Improvisation in movement
• Part 3 Making shapes
• Materials and processes
• 2D 3D Prototyping
• CNC machining
• Assembly
• Part 4. Electronics
• Digital Components and design principles
• Analogue/digital boundary
• PC board design and fab

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In detail

• Part 5 Real-time programming
• Processes and threads
• Shared data
• Communication and networking
• improvisation in an interactive device
• Part 6 Mechanics
• Material properties
• Components
• Building systems
• improvisation in physical agents
• Part 7 Optics
• Physics of light
• components
• materials
• opto-electronic boundary

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Course goals

• Fluency in these media
• Knowledge of what is possible vs. practical
• Knowledge of what is hard vs. easy
• Ability to do easy things
• Leveraging others work to do some hard things
• Learning skills to improve mastery of a medium
• Knowledge of what, where and who to go to to
  exceed your own limits

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Secondary goals

• Skills at working in interdisciplinary teams
• Ability to fill-in gaps and work across
  disciplinary boundaries
• How to learn from a collaborative team
• Peer critique and problem-solving
• Construction of a shared knowledge repository
• Development of cross-medium design sense

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Class pragmatics

• The work for the class will comprise
• Small exercises in each of the media
• Contributions to the class repository
• Reviews of readings will be posted online
• Numerical ratings of papers will be required
• New books, papers, links or other resources are
  expected
• A larger (semester-long) project in one medium
• Participation in class and critiques
• You will hear soon about the class swiki

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Class pragmatics

• Assignments and project work will generally be
  done on one of the public computers in the BID
  space.
• Send email to jfc_at_cs.berkeley.edu if you dont
  have an EECS account.

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Why so much breadth?

• All of these topics are central to design of
  information-rich environments.
• Lack of fluency creates blind spots or phobia
  of tackling the real problem.
• Disciplinary boundaries are in flux the ones we
  have now may shift in a few years.

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Silos vs. Networks

• Researchers of knowledge work have remarked on
  the trend away from the silo model to
  network-like organizations.

Each silo contains a specialtydesign,
production, QA,
Network much strongerconnectivity
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Closed vs. Open Corporations

• The closed (vertically-integrated) corporation is
  virtually extinct. Today, everybody outsources.
• Its much harder to be competitive without product
  differentiation, so there are relatively few
  basic component developers (Intel, Siemens, 3M,)
• Most companies today are integrators, and profits
  are moving from products to solutions.

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• Discussion

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Components vs. Systems

• The components available for design are much more
  complex than in the past
• Gates ? ALUs ? CPUs ? Servers
• Motors ? Servos ? Motion stages ? Robots
• Fabrication tools are similarly much advanced
• Hand tools ? CNC machining ? 3D printing
• Point-to-point wiring ? PC boards ? ExpressPCB
• Selective breeding ? gene splicing ? Custom DNA
  (_at_ 30 per base in 1999 !!)
• Other examples?

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Components vs. Systems

• Components come with usage aids behavior models
  and use patterns, that drastically simplify their
  use.
• Even specialists rely on high-level components
• Their use does not require top-to-bottom
  understanding, which levels the playing field
• Knowledge is more localized, tacit and
  experienced
• Analysis is often left to the simulator.

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Designing from components

• So designing systems is much easier than it used
  to be.
• The hypothesis of this course is that there is a
  common set of design/learning skills across media
  for smart artifacts.
• We will create a shared set of knowledge
  resources for design
• Components, Suppliers, CAD tools, Fabricators,

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Outsourcing

• Things that can be outsourced today at moderate
  cost
• Mechanical designs
• Composites and cellular materials
• Arbitrary 3D shapes
• Printed-circuit boards
• Optics large lenses and diffusers, holograms, EL
  displays, (soon) e-paper
• Made-to-order materials polymers and
  nano-particle blends

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• Break

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Design studio model

• Your design knowledge has to be constructed by
  you.
• Cooperation and critique with other students is
  the best way to build this knowledge.
• You need to understand what you can do, and what
  you cant.
• We will borrow other techniques from design
  improvisation exercises, case studies and design
  patterns.

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Why is this a Berkeley class?Or where is the
rigor?

• Rigor has different forms, and where possible we
  will include theoretical material.
• Theory includes optional readings on
• The mathematics or physics or engineering details
  of a design medium
• Historical and critical essays on the medium
• And

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Why is this a Berkeley class?Or where is the
rigor?

• The core knowledge of the course is
  meta-knowledge about how to acquire design
  expertise in a new medium.
• Hence the frequent references to knowledge work
  and studies of it. We will include some readings
  on interdisciplinary and design work.

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Meta-process

• List the important qualities of the medium
• Explore the design dimensions of the medium
  (improvisation)
• Focus on one quality at a time
• Test the limits of the medium
• Learn good solutions via case studies and design
  patterns

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Meta-process

• Acquire resources for design in the medium
• Reference books
• CAD tools and models
• Network of fabricators
• Create and maintain a design repository with the
  above information, plus your own cases and
  patterns

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Ittens Design and Form

• The first course in the pre-war Bauhaus school of
  design.
• Students experienced design in several media
  (glass, clay, stone, wood etc.), and later
  specialized.
• There were complementary courses in theory
  color, materials, representation,

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Ittens Design and Form

• Note his attention to qualities of forms, most
  often expressed as contrasts
• Large-small, high-low, transparent-opaque etc.
• These are the expressive dimensions of the medium
  functional aspects will be important too.
• Are there other dimensions?

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McCulloughs Abstracting Craft

• Variations on a theme (figure 6.9, New England
  Steeples).
• Several other examples appear in figures 8.1-8.6
• Covers classical and new affordances of new media
  (e.g. generative aspects).

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Improvisations in motion

• John Maedas Java applets www.maedostudio.com

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For next time

• Carefully read Itten and McCullough.
• Write a short summary of each in electronic form
  ready to Swiki it soon.
• Email me if you dont have an EECS account.