Fall 2025
Class Times
| Section 6: Tues 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 413 Section 7: Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 413 |
ITP Physcomp weekly syllabus
ITP Physcomp syllabus with all weeks chart summary
Contact
Book office hours with me on my calendar. I will schedule regular office hour appointment slots which you can book automatically once the semester starts. You’ll need to sign in with your NYU login to see it.
Feel free to email me at danny.rozin@nyu.edu if you have any questions or things you want to talk about.
Class Blogs
Morning class- add your blog URL here
Afternoon class – add your blog URL here
(Sign-in with NYU account)
First class
Fantasy Device – As a class, we’ll make a list of fantasy devices; things that don’t exist, but that we wish did. For today, we’ll ignore technical feasibility and concentrate on how you’d operate these devices if they did exist. We’ll divide into groups of 3. Pick a fantasy device from the list. Design/mockup a control interface for this device and demonstrate it in class. Try to think physically and avoid too much screen controls, speech and direct mind control…
It is sometimes useful to think in terms of WH questions and try to answer them in your design:
WHO? WHEN? WHERE? WHAT?
Lets take an example, A popular fantasy device in movies and books is a time machine. In movies and TV, the production has to imagine what these devices look like and how they are controlled:
“Back to the future” movie:
So thinking about the WH questions:
WHAT is it ? – A car.
WHO gets to go ? – anyone in the car.
WHERE does it take you ? Set in the control panel.
WHEN does it activate ? When the car reaches 80 MPS.
Stewie from “Family Guy” time machine:
Here the designers decided the machine is a cabinet, but they also added a disc that goes with Stewie and is used to get back:
WHAT? – A cabinet and a disc
WHO gets to go? Anyone in the cabinet or on the disc.
WHEN does it activate ? Not sure, but there is a big red button…
WHERE does it take you? There is a control panel, note that the control seems to be relative, so you can go forwards and backwards, not absolute like in “Back to the future”
“Spongebob Squarepants” time machine:
Here the machine is the freezer from the Crusty Crab, note that the whole freezer travels through time and it is ripped from it’s surroundings
WHAT is it ? A freezer.
WHO gets to go ? Whoever is in the freezer.
WHERE does it go? Hard to say, looks like two levers and no display.
WHEN does it activate? Hard to say, but it has some buttons.