Harvard Summer School
Summer 2023: Tues & Thurs 12 – 3pm
Instructor: Nathan Melenbrink
Teaching Assistants: Kassia Love and Ibrahim Ibrahim
A hands-on introduction to rapid prototyping, integrating physics and engineering, design, computer science and art. Students will learn to safely use software and hardware to fabricate programmable projects. Tools and topics will include electronic circuit design, 3D CAD, programmable microcontrollers, and wireless networking (Internet of Things). Additionally, students will learn operational principles for techniques such as laser cutting, 3D printing, and computer-controlled milling. Applications may include personal fabrication, product prototyping, fine arts and the creation of scientific research tools. The course will culminate with an individual final project, integrating as many of the weekly topics as possible. Each student will document work on each weekly topic in a personal website, thereby finishing the course with an online portfolio that not only illustrates their new skill sets, but also contributes to a collective repository of knowledge that serves as a foundation for continued learning.
Prerequisites: There are no formal prerequisites for this course. However, basic computer literacy (word processing, online search skills, etc.) is expected. Students are expected to bring their own laptop computer.
Students are expected to arrive on time and to be prepared to participate in class activities. During class, material will be presented using a combination of lecture and in-class activities, so preparation is essential. For a further explanation of summer school policies around attendance and participation, see student responsibilities
Students are required to take advantage of provided supervised lab times to work on their assignments and final project. Attendance is mandatory; all assignments require some amount of lab work and there will be no possibility of working in the lab without supervision. As per Harvard Summer School recommendations, students are expected to do at least 8–12 hours of work per week outside of class time. For this course, 6 of those hours will come from 3-hour supervised lab times (twice weekly), while additional coursework such as web documentation may be done outside of the lab. For each lab session, students should take care to:
Sections: On the first course meeting, students will be divided into two groups for supervised lab time: either 12-3pm Mondays and Wednesdays, or 3:15-6:15 Wednesdays and Fridays. Ideally groups will be equally sized at 12 or 13 students each. We will make sure to accommodate anyone who has a scheduling conflict with one of the offered times.
Conflicts: There will be no make-up supervised lab-times. If students are not able to make their scheduled lab time, they may arrange with a course TA to attend another section’s lab time.
Grading: Attendance of supervised lab time will count towards the 20% participation grade.
Students will be assessed on the basis of website documentation (60%), the documentation and presentation of the final project (20%) and attendance and participation (20%). Only work that is documented on the personal page will be considered for grading. Students taking the course for graduate credit will be given the same assignments, but with higher expectations for assignment sophistication and documentation (see below).
Documentation: Thorough documentation on your personal page is required in order to earn full credit for assignments (60% of total grade). You will have one week to complete each assignment (i.e., assignments given on a Tuesday are due the next Tuesday).A well-documented assignment is one that provides sufficient information for someone else to fully recreate your project. At a minimum this requires photographs, screenshots, and a thorough written description of the steps taken, and may also require code snippets, movies, 3D models and/or links to outside resources. Here is an example of a well-documented assignment. Instructors will provide examples and precedents for each assignment. Documentation will be assessed throughout the semester, and instructors will provide mid-term feedback.
Assignment documentation grades are out of 5. Scores indicate the following:
Midterm feedback will be provided. Notes on midterm feedback:
If you're scoring 4s and 4.5s, you're likely on track to get an A/A-/B+. (Provisional grades do not include participation or final projects.)
If you have no score for a given assignment, that means we weren't able to find your documentation (maybe a broken link). If you have a very low score, you might have images or other assets failing to load properly (remember .png is not the same as .PNG). Make sure to check your page from a different computer and different browser to make sure it's working for everyone.
You have until the last day of the exam period to make revisions to your website. At the end of the semester, we'll ask you to let us know if we should re-grade any of your assignments. We will give up to a 4.5 for late revisions.
Unfortunately, we do not have time to haggle over individual assignment grades. If you're not happy with the grades you received, remember that grades are improved by going well beyond the in-class examples, trying more than one thing, and adding more assets to your documentation.
Final Project: Students are asked to present an idea for a final project at the start of the semester, which is expected to evolve over the duration of the course. Students will have weekly opportunities for advising on final project ideation. Final projects should integrate most of the skills covered over the semester, including at a minimum:
| Date | Class |
|---|---|
| Tue Jun 20 | 01: Introduction, Lab, Safety, Documentation / HTML |
| Thu Jun 22 | 02: 2D design and cutting, Vinyl cutter/Laser cutter |
| Tue Jun 27 | 03: Hand tools and fabrication, Mechanical design |
| Thu Jun 29 | 04: Microcontroller Programming |
| Tue Jul 4 | Holiday, no class |
| Thu Jul 6 | 05: 3D design, 3D scanning and printing |
| Tue Jul 11 | 06: Sensors. Electronic input devices |
| Thu Jul 13 | 07: Electronic output devices |
| Tue Jul 18 | 08: CNC milling. Toolpaths 2D and 3D. Molding & Casting. |
| Thu Jul 20 | 09: Wired, Radio, Wifi and Bluetooth communication (IoT) |
| Tue Jul 25 | 10: Computer-controlled machine making. Stepper motor driving, end effectors. |
| Thu Jul 27 | 11: Wildcard: Interfacing projects with computers. Water jet. Vacuum Forming. |
| Tue Aug 1 | 12: Extra lab times to continue project development. |
| Thu Aug 3 | 13: Final project presentation |
The Summer School is committed to providing an accessible academic community. The Accessibility Office offers a variety of accommodations and services to students with documented disabilities. Please visit their website for more information.
You are responsible for understanding Harvard Summer School policies on academic integrity and how to use sources responsibly. Not knowing the rules, misunderstanding the rules, running out of time, submitting the wrong draft, or being overwhelmed with multiple demands are not acceptable excuses. To support your learning about academic citation rules, please visit the Resources to Support Academic Integrity where you will find links to the Harvard Guide to Using Sources and two free online 15-minute tutorials to test your knowledge of academic citation policy. The tutorials are anonymous open-learning tools.
Students may not post, publish, sell, or otherwise publicly distribute course materials without the written permission of the course instructor. Such materials include, but are not limited to, the following: lecture notes, lecture slides, video, or audio recordings, assignments, problem sets, examinations, other students’ work, and answer keys. Students who sell, post, publish, or distribute course materials without written permission, whether for the purposes of soliciting answers or otherwise, may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the Summer School. Further, students may not make video or audio recordings of class sessions for their own use without written permission of the instructor.
Collaboration: While all assignments are to be completed individually, we seek to foster an atmosphere of collaboration in the lab. You are encouraged to share information, advice and techniques with your classmates, but your assignments should be completed on your own.