The course provides a hands-on introduction to the resources for designing and fabricating smart systems, including CAD/CAM/CAE; NC machining, 3-D printing, injection molding, laser cutting; PCB layout and fabrication; sensors and actuators; analog instrumentation; embedded digital processing; wired and wireless communications. Emphasis is placed on learning how to use the tools as well as understanding how they work.

Design Tools

Design and model a solution to a problem from ThinkCycle.
Help:

• Cobalt tutorial
• 3D modeling diatribe: should I use Rhino or Cobalt? (Hayes Raffle)
• Folding Tutorial: how to model a polyhedron by "folding up" flat polygons (Hayes Raffle)

Laser, Waterjet, NC Knife Cutting

Cut and fabricate something using as many types of materials as possible:

• Laser Cutter Tutorial
• Water Cutter Tutorial
• Manuals for the Laser Cutter and Water Cutter
• Rasterizing images on the lasercutter (by Amanda Parkes)

Microcontroller Programming

• Microcontroller info (by David Merril)
• Driving Solenoids (by David Merrill)

Machining

Circuit Design

• Joe Paradiso's Electronics Primer Notes (updated by Michael Sung)
• Useful Electronic Parts and Circuits Information (scanned by Michael Sung)
• Simple Pseudo-Random Sound Generator Example
• A funny video of circuit de-bugging

Problem 1: How to drive stepmotors?

• Driving Stepmotors (by Axel Kilian)
• Color coding of resistors (by Saoirse Higgins)
• Web sites used for help with circuit design (by David Merril, Kyle Steinfeld):
  http://www.findchips.com/
  http://www.digikey.com/ (voted " the best source")
  http://www.google.com/ PIC
  http://www.TI.com
  
• Midi stuff:
  http://fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~tigoe/pcomp/pic/pic-midi-pbpro.shtml
  http://www.midi.org/about-midi/abtmidi.htm
  http://www.weir.net/~mwhitco/
  http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall02/cs436/InputMIDI/midielec.html

useful book: "Practical Electronics for Inventors" (good theory explanations, bad schematics)

3D Printing and NC Machining

• Modela instructions (by C. Scott Ananian)
• 3D printer instructions (by C. Scott Ananian)
• John's FabLab Tutorials (by Difrancesco)
• Site for Making Gears with printers of cutters (by Axel Killian):
  http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/People/rapidproto/mechanisms/chpt7.html

PCB Design

• Making a new Schematic/PCB part in Protel '99 (by David Merrill)
• Making a PCB on the Modela (instructions and software, by CSA)
• Carving a Protel circuit board on the Roland Mill (Additional suggestions from Hayes Raffle)
• Making a PCB fixture bed (instructions and CAD files, by CSA)

Forming and Joining

• Handy Page of links to Forming and Joining resources (Hayes Raffle)

Sensors, Actuators and Displays

• Joe P Revisited (Parutron)

3D Input

Wired and Wireless Communications

• Networking standards definitions (Axel Kilian with Krikorian)
• Networking hardware schematics, assembly code and ORCAD files
• Presentation by Raffi Krikorian

Projects Presentation