81678 - Laboratory of Making

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course students will be able to design and create digitally enabled "things" consisting of single board computers, sensors and actuators. They will be also able to study and implements all the software components needed by their "things" to interface peripherals, to process data and to communicate/interoperate. Tools to create physical objects will be studied in this course as well, both additive and subtractive manifacturing methods. The students will learn how to implement innovative software for CNC-like machines (3D printers, CNC mills, laser cutters, etc). In this way a student can design physical and digitally enabled objects and tools from blueprint to prototype. Such "digital craft working" professionals can provide original solutions for both practical and artistic challenges. Subjects of the course will also be the design and development of teaching methods for computer Science based on Making, and Making as a problem solving paradigm.

Course contents

Makers and Making.

Digital Revolution, Internet, Second Renaissance and Third Industrial Revolution.

Basic knowledge of digital electronics and concepts of analogic electronics.

Microcontrollers, microprocessors, SoC and single-board systems.

Concepts of Hardware description languages (for FPGA and ASIC).

Development Systems.

Sensors, actuators and bus standards to interface them.

Protocols and Data formats for CNC.

Internet of things and internet of threads

Wireless Systems for makers

Applications: Home automation, education, music, drones, meteorology, automotive, ham radio, fun.

Readings/Bibliography

There are no reference readings for this course.

Papers and documents will be provided during the course in electronic format

Teaching methods

Project brainstorming

Laboratory experiments and projects

Assessment methods

Final Project and oral exam: presentation and discussion of the project.

Teaching tools

Video projector, blackboard, the Internet, hacking skills.
This course is proprietary software free, i.e. we'll use libre (FLOSS) software only. Students can deepen their understanding at any level and they will ever be free to use the knowledge acquired in this course.

Office hours

See the website of Renzo Davoli