Thursday, July 6, 2006
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Electronics for Artists 1
Instructor Name: Mark Allen
Email: m@machineproject.com
Schedule: 5-8 pm, Nov 7, 14, 21 and Dec 5.
Course Description: The human experience is profoundly influenced and controlled by technology. Electronics for artists aims to be the first step in transforming this influence into a space of play and exploration. This class will cover the primarily techniques and ideas of working with electronics. Students will be exposed to basic tools and components for building robust, practical circuitry into their art works. No attempt will be made to provide encyclopedic coverage of electronics due to the sprawling nature of the topic – rather students will be encouraged to become comfortable with experimentation and hands on hacking.
Course Prerequisites: Open
Textbook: If you wish to purchase a textbook, I recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors, by Paul Schertz. If you really want to nerd out, I highly recommend Nuts and Volts magazine, subscriptions available from http://www.nutsvolts.com/
In addition, I have an extensive collection of electronics and robotics textbooks which I will bring to class for you to check out.
Website: www.markallen.com/teaching/machine/efa1
Registration Fee: A registration fee of $100 and materials fee of $50 is required to attend this class. Please register before the first class to give me time to order enough materials for everyone. Registration page.
Equipment: As part of the registration fee, everyone will be provided with a component and tool kit. If you already own a multimeter and soldering iron, and don’t wish to purchase another, you may purchase only the component kit for $20. Please let me know if you wish to do this at the time of your registration.
Lab: Each meeting will consist of a lecture and lab. During lab we will build circuits based on the concepts discussed in the lecture.
Weekly Outline:
1: November 7th. DC Basics. Voltage, current, resistance. Series and parallel circuits. Identifying common components. Building basic circuits from resistors, LEDs, switches, wires and batteries and how to (not) burn, smoke, or otherwise ruin them. Lab 1. Lecture Notes
2: November 14th. AC Basics. Electromagnetism, induction, capacitance. Soldering and best construction practices. Lab 2. Lecture Notes
3: November 21st. Semi-conductors, transistors, diodes. Potentiometers and other kinds of variable resistors. Relays. How to turn anything on and off, including blenders. Voltage divider circuits. Lab 3. Lecture Notes
4: December 5. Integrated circuits. 555 timers and Op-Amps. Timers, oscillators and amplifiers. Lab 4