Sketching with Hardware: A course for teaching Interactive Hardware Prototyping to Computer Science Students

Abstract

Sketching with Hardware is an undergraduate university course with the goal to teach students how to build prototypes for tangible user interfaces. Goals of this course are to create awareness for tangible interaction among students and prepare them to realize advanced projects like bachelor’s and master’s theses in this field. In this paper, authors share their experience teaching the concepts of tangible interaction, electronics and prototyping to computer science students in a two week course. The course’s content, structure and goals are explained, and needed material and infrastructure are described. The long-term effect of the course has been evaluated by conducting a survey among former participants.