Resources – ITP Physical Computing

This section contains resources that are useful for physical computing in general, like reading material, suppliers, links to other useful sites, recommended tools and parts to get started, and more.

Parts & Tools Guide

Other ITP sites

ITP Fabrication All the fabrication classes at ITP will be linked here.
ITP Networks Information about networking is linked here.

External Sites

Interaction design

Bill Verplank’s interaction design sketchbook, a useful introduction to what is interaction design.
Bill Moggridge’s Designing Interactions book and website. A monster of a work with tons of interviews and case studies about interactive works. A great resource.

Cardboard Construction

Building with Cardboard – a guide to building solid structures with cardboard, from the Adaptive Design Association.
The Art of Cardboard – another guide to cardboard construction
Template Maker – need to make a custom-sized cardboard box? Here’s a tool to generate a template that you can cut with a knife.
Two good videos on cardboard construction:
- CardBoard Basics Tutorial Guide Chip/Matte Board model making: modeling for Designers & Architects
- CardBoard Advanced Basics Tutorial guide for model making: modeling for Designers & Architects
- Cardboard Modeling: Exploring, Experiencing, and Communicating by Joep Frens, includes some very detailed models made in foam-core and cardboard, proof that it’s possible to to high-fidelity modeling in paper and cardboard.
Cardboard Motor Mechanisms collection
Linear actuation with cardboard by Yeseul

Electronics References

LED current calculator
Resistor color code calculator
An SVG file of electronic schematic symbols
Sensor reports from ITP Tangible Interaction class

Mechanics References

Dustyn Roberts’ Mechanisms & Things That Move site
Rob Ives, formerly Flying Pig, a great site for simple mechanisms
Mekanizmalar.com – a great series of animations illustrating different mechanisms.

Software Tools

NYU Google App suite – you’ll need to know these for most of NYU interaction. You have access to the whole suite through your NYU account. Search for NYU Drive. We’ll use mail, calendar, docs, sheets, drive, and slides.

Zoom – Crucial during 2020, perhaps still useful in 2021 and beyond? Check out Zoom tutorials and resources by NYU.

Code Tools

Arduino: As of Fall 2021, we use version 1.8.15 or later. Download is free. We would not yet recommend the 2.0 IDE for beginners, however, as there are some features that have yet to be implemented fully.
GitHub: gitHub is a code repository that we use in many classes at ITP. The code samples for this class are all in this gitHub repository, Accounts are free, and the GitHub Desktop app is free as well.
glitch.com is a code sharing site that’s specific to web apps.It works well with p5.js and node.js sketches and applications p5.js sketches on Glitch can talk to Arduino using the p5.serialport library and p5.serialcontrol app. Accounts are free.
Visual Studio Code as is a good programming editor outside of the Arduino IDE. It’s good for for HTML, JavaScript (including p5.js projects), node.js, and sometimes Arduino as well. You may not need it, but if you’re looking for a general purpose programming editor check it out. Downloads are free.

Drawing Tools

This course involves a lot of circuit and system drawings. You can use any drawing tool that you like.

The circuit diagrams on this site are made in Fritzing, a circuit and schematic drawing program designed for electronics beginners. Downloads are about $9.oo USD. Alternately you can download the source and compile it yourself for free. You can export SVGs from it and work in any other drawing program as well.
Inkscape is a free and open source vector drawing tool. Downloads are free.
Sketch, Affinity Designer or Adobe Illustrator are also popular vector drawing tools, though they are not free.
Circuit Diagram Editor – an online circuit schematic editor that can export most standard image formats. No registration needed, use is free.