This lecture and project course is about interactions:between the ever-increasing computational power and the everyday objects that it can be embedded in; between ways of thinking about these possibilities, and between distinct objectives such as performance, usability, elegance, ergonomics, and aesthetics.

The course this year will focus on the area of computationally augmented spaces, more specifically, the smart classroom.

This course will run in parallel to the TEXperience course run at the Bezalel Academy of Art (Mount Scopus campus). Our students will be invited to participate in developing projects with industrial design students from Bezalel, and we will be inviting Bezalel students to serve as design consultants on our projects. Participants in each course will have access to the insights and some of the tools of the other.

We will develop in the labs some hardware and software building blocks for products with embedded intelligence, and discuss the evolution of technologies and approaches to design of effective products in lectures. Small student teams will develop future product ideas to the point of testing their validity with prototypes and making a final presentation of their potential. Course projects may be eligible to receive financing for hardware parts needed for implementation.