Instructor

Description

Overview

Introduction to Making is an exploratory course that gives you the practical, hands-on skills to make working prototypes of your products. You will learn to make physical things, make them work, and integrate them with electronics/software.  Common fabrication techniques including foamboard, 3D printing, laser cutting, electronics, and  Arduino programming. You will be demonstrating your hands-on skills as well as your entrepreneurial spirit in a final project.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion, students will:

• Know that they can harness technology themselves through hands-on making without fear or prior physical making and coding knowledge
• Have developed confidence and proficiency in maker tools and techniques, such as concept drawing, hand modeling, 3d printing, laser cutting, electronics, and working with connected devices
• Know how to collaborate in multidisciplinary teams to design and build working prototypes
• Have acquired an entrepreneurial mindset by learning to apply the “build-measure-learn” loop through failing fast and doing rapid iterations

Course Topics and Objectives

• Develop Foundation Skills: Master the idea-to-prototype process through hands-on making, team formation, the entrepreneurial mindset of “build-measure-learn”, and navigating maker spaces with proper safety protocols.
• Learn To Do Digital Fabrication: Design and fabricate physical objects using CAD software, laser cutters for 2D projects, and 3D printers for complex geometries.
• Acquire skills in Electronics and Programming: Build functional circuits with electronic components and program microcontrollers using MicroPython, enhanced by AI-assisted code generation.
• Learn to design and develop connected devices: Create smart IoT devices that sense environmental data, visualize information, and enable remote monitoring and control through web interfaces.
• Understand the unique challenges and rewards for hardware startups: Apply hardware startup principles to iterate prototypes from v0 to v1, culminating in a showcase that demonstrates market-ready functionality.
• Collaborative Innovation: Work effectively in multidisciplinary teams to leverage diverse skills, resolve technical challenges collectively, and integrate different perspectives into cohesive prototype solutions.