Welcome to the Spring 2013 edition of “Special Topics in Interactive Art and Computational Design”, an interdisciplinary studio course in new-media arts. I have taught this course in this format at CMU since 2010. If you’d like to enjoy the fruits of previous semesters, please see the links:
We begin our semester with 25 students enrolled: twelve women and thirteen men. Here are some additional statistics about our class population, obtained from the entrance survey:
Students enrolled in the class span every level from first-year undergraduates to doctoral students, distributed as follows:
- Freshman – ⚫
- Sophomore – ⚫ ⚫
- Junior – ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
- Senior – ⚫ ⚫
- Masters – ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
- PhD – ⚫
Students in the class hail from 12 different degree programs within Carnegie Mellon, distributed as follows:
- Computer Science and Arts – ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
- School of Art (Art) – ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
- Interaction Design (Design) – ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
- Tangible Interaction Design (Architecture) – ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
- Music & Technology – ⚫ ⚫
- Mechanical Engineering – ⚫ ⚫
- Computational Design (Architecture) – ⚫
- Entertainment Technology – ⚫
- Institute for Software Research – ⚫
- Electrical Engineering – ⚫
- Computer Science – ⚫
- Robotics – ⚫
Asked to select two of the following three options, enrolled students described that they were most interested in making things which are:
Beautiful |
68% |
Interesting |
84% |
Useful |
48% |
Asked to select two of the following three options, enrolled students described that they prefer to make things:
Quickly |
56% |
Inexpensively |
52% |
Of good quality |
92% |
Students ranked their interests in various topics and themes. In decreasing order, enrolled students expressed their degree of interest in these subjects as follows (arbitrary units):
tangible/body-based interface design |
1.52 |
information visualization |
1.28 |
augmented reality |
1.24 |
mechatronic, robotic and/or device art |
1.16 |
game design |
1.08 |
artificial life, physics simulations |
1.04 |
generative form |
1.00 |
audiovisual media / performance |
0.92 |
tactical / hactivist media |
0.80 |
computer animation / CGI |
0.80 |
locative / mobile media |
0.72 |
design fiction |
0.56 |
dynamic typography |
0.56 |
Experience with various text-based programming languages was as follows:
|
None |
< 1 year |
2-3 years |
4+ years |
Response
Count |
C, C++, C# |
40% (10) |
28% (7) |
24% (6) |
8% (2) |
25 |
Objective C |
76% (19) |
20% (5) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Java |
24% (6) |
28% (7) |
40% (10) |
8% (2) |
25 |
ECMAScript variants (e.g. JavaScript) |
28% (7) |
32% (8) |
32% (8) |
8% (2) |
25 |
Mathematica, Matlab |
64% (16) |
20% (5) |
12% (3) |
4% (1) |
25 |
Perl |
92% (23) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
PHP |
64% (16) |
12% (3) |
20% (5) |
4% (1) |
25 |
Python |
33% (8) |
46% (11) |
21% (5) |
0% (0) |
24 |
Ruby |
79% (19) |
21% (5) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
24 |
Visual Basic |
88% (22) |
8% (2) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Enrolled students’ prior experience with the following arts-engineering toolkits was as follows:
|
None |
Ran demo |
Used it |
<1 year |
2-3 years |
4+ years |
Response
Count |
Arduino |
12% (3) |
12% (3) |
24% (6) |
24% (6) |
24% (6) |
4% (1) |
25 |
Cinder |
88% (22) |
12% (3) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Cocoa |
80% (20) |
8% (2) |
4% (1) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
25 |
D3 |
92% (23) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
25 |
DirectX |
84% (21) |
16% (4) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Flash / Flex |
24% (6) |
12% (3) |
36% (9) |
8% (2) |
20% (5) |
0% (0) |
25 |
GLSL |
96% (23) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
24 |
Grasshopper |
76% (19) |
12% (3) |
4% (1) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
HTML Canvas |
52% (13) |
20% (5) |
12% (3) |
8% (2) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Max/MSP/Jitter |
52% (13) |
12% (3) |
24% (6) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
25 |
MEL Script |
92% (23) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
NodeBox |
96% (24) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
OpenGL |
56% (14) |
16% (4) |
20% (5) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
OpenFrameworks |
61% (14) |
26% (6) |
0% (0) |
13% (3) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
23 |
Processing |
0% (0) |
24% (6) |
8% (2) |
28% (7) |
36% (9) |
4% (1) |
25 |
Pure Data (pd) |
68% (17) |
20% (5) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Quartz Composer |
92% (23) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
25 |
RhinoScript |
87% (21) |
0% (0) |
8% (2) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
24 |
Silverlight |
92% (23) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
SuperCollider |
84% (21) |
8% (2) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
Unity3D |
68% (17) |
16% (4) |
8% (2) |
8% (2) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
VVVV |
84% (21) |
16% (4) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
25 |
WPF |
96% (24) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
0% (0) |
4% (1) |
25 |