Tangible media is an exciting site of creative exploration that brings together electronics, code and material fabrication. The field is broad with creative examples including wearables, game controllers, interactive installation, kinetic sculpture, hardware agents, robotics, networked objects and much much more.
This course strives to provide artists, designers and other creatives the hands-on skills, technical vocabulary and key historical and conceptual landmarks to begin successfully developing and exploring tangible possibilities.
I view the hardware and software side of tangible as extension of one another. Every line of code affects a circuit somewhere. In the word of tangible we often get to create both the circuits and the code that entangles them. Much of what drives my interest in tangible is exploring how these two realms engage in dialog.
It’s introductory on purpose.
The material on this site is geared towards creatives, not engineers. The level of material is often introductory. I assume you have no experience with electronics and just want to get making. I use simplifying metaphors with reckless abandon and may describe concepts in ways that will make engineers cringe.
Advanced users / creators from electrical engineering and similar spaces may object to the ways I have chosen to describe various processes. If you are one of these users and you feel compelled to point out how my explanations are not what your physics prof told you, I encourage you to just keep moving — this site probably isn’t for you.
New explorers to tangible may want to push beyond the introductory language and I always encourage you to do so — often with links at the end of pages and posts.
Site Organization
The best way to learn tangible is to make. This site has an overarching structure but there is not a singular way to use the material here. Pick and choose, turn over rocks, take a break, drink some water, hangout with friends, search the web and come back for more.
Building Blocks
The site provides a series of Building Blocks that introduce new electronic components . Each Building Block is self contained and offers just enough information to get started with a new component or idea.
Hopefully they will also act as quick references and refreshers as you become more comfortable exploring tangibly.
Code blocks
Code Blocks are the software siblings of Building Blocks. Code Blocks introduce simple software concepts and illustrates connections to hardware where needed. If you are new to tangible you will quickly learn that some hardware needs code to function, while other hardware take on new meaning when integrated with code.
There are tons of great general coding sites out there — I am not trying to be one of them. Links that push beyond will frequently be provided.
Explorations
Explorations expand upon the focus of Blocks and strive towards concepts and synthetic exploration. They offer more context and breadth around technical underpinnings — often tying multiple Building Blocks and Code Blocks together.