What is covered, week by week, and which topics each lecture draws on.
Where a lecture runs, it’s the first hour of that week’s four-hour studio block, not a standalone class — the rest of the block is hands-on tutorial time. Two weeks (11 and 12) carry no lecture at all and run hands-on throughout. See Tutorials for the full weekly breakdown and each week’s runsheet.
Orientation + Digitizing Media I
What Round Trip is, why it runs dual-audience, and the first digitizing technique — scanning and photogrammetry
Week 1 · 22 February 2027
Digitizing Media I, continued
Projection mapping — throwing computed light back onto the physical surface you scanned last week
Week 2 · 1 March 2027
Programming I: Creative Coding Foundations
An artist-friendly, visual-first on-ramp into programming — immediate feedback over syntax
Week 3 · 8 March 2027
Arduino / Physical Computing I — sensors
Reading the physical world into a microcontroller — sensors, and Studio Brief 1's crit
Week 4 · 15 March 2027
Arduino / Physical Computing II — actuators
Writing back out to the physical world — motors, light and sound driven by code
Week 5 · 22 March 2027
Bridging — serial comms
Getting sensor data off the microcontroller and into the digital systems from weeks 1–3
Week 6 · 29 March 2027
Programming II: Interactive Systems I — state machines
The deeper technical pillar begins — state machines and input handling, and Studio Brief 2's crit
Week 7 · 12 April 2027
Programming II: Interactive Systems II — rule systems
Small game engines and rule systems — composing state machines into something that behaves like a system
Week 8 · 19 April 2027
Complex Physical Media I — vision and tracking
Camera-based tracking as a richer form of digitizing, and the Final Planning & Ideation crit
Week 9 · 26 April 2027
Complex Physical Media II — fabrication
Digital-back-to-physical — 3D printing and laser cutting complete the round trip
Week 10 · 3 May 2027
Studio week — parallel clinics
Two tracks running side by side — a code clinic and a make clinic — so either audience can shore up their weaker half before the final
Week 11 · 10 May 2027
Final crit / grand show
The semester's round trip completes — final projects shown to an audience, and the course closes
Week 12 · 17 May 2027