HCIN 720: Prototyping Wearable and Internet of Things Devices

This class is about prototyping physical artifacts that are connected to the Internet: allowing things sensed about the physical world to be acted on in the cloud, and to allow things happening on the Internet to be reflected in the physical world. The focus of the class is on learning by doing.

Inspirations

This class has been heavily inspired, and in some cases modeled on, a number of classes taught at other universities:

• CMSC838f: Tangible Interactive Computing taught by Jon Froehlich at the University of Maryland.
• CSCI7000: Physical Computing taught by Shaun Kane at the University of Colorado Boulder.
• CS294-84: Interactive Device Design taught by Bjoern Hartmann at the University of California Berkeley.
• INFO290-4: Tangible User Interfaces taught by Kimiko Ryokai and others at the University of California Berkeley.
• CSCI6609: Ubiquitous Computing taught by Derek Reilly at Dalhousie University.

Resources

• How to ask questions (the smart way)

General Making resources

• Hackster.io
• Instructables

Photon

• Photon Guide
• Photon Reference
  • Note particularly the docs about the function we talked about in class: Spark.function()
• Particle Community

Javascript

There are quite a few Javascript books available via the RIT Library. Use this search link for a list of them.

A couple of books to look for, whether online, physically via the library, or buying them yourself:

• JavaScript: The Good Parts
• Learning JavaScript Design Patterns (read it via the library or free online here)
• Eloquent JavaScript (free online)
• Node: Up and Running (free online)
• JavaScript reference for non-JavaScript programmers (“This document is intended as a reference or introduction to JavaScript for someone familiar with a language like C/C++/Java or Python.”)

Other online resources:

• Stack Overflow—Answers to all of the programming questions. Ever.
• MDN JavaScript Guide—The Mozilla Developer Network is generally very helpful and well-done.
• Mastering node.js
• Javascript for Java Developers
• Javascript Best Practices
• Learn Javascript Best Practices

Learning about electronics

• Nicely illustrated guide using the water analogy for electricity
• Sparkfun is a great electronics supplier. They have some very nice resources for getting started with understanding hardware:
  • What is Electricity?
  • Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm’s Law
  • What is a circuit?
  • Metric Prefixes
  • How to Use a Breadboard
  • How to Use a Multimeter
  • Connector Basics
  • Polarity
  • Series and Parallel Circuits
  • AC vs DC current
• Sparkfun also has a nice-look set of Photon projects.
• Adafruit also has many useful tutorials, especially under the Arduino category
  • Including a nice lesson about LEDs
• Bildr is a fantastic resource for doing lots of things with electronics and Arduinos. For example, they have a great tutorial on hooking up a light sensor.