This page lists courses held in Jacobs Hall during fall 2018. To see Jacobs Hall course listings from other semesters, please visit our primary course listings page.
By combining laser scanning, generative design, and 3D printing, this class will focus on the creation of custom-fit joints, which are capable of combining multiple components with each other in order to form new, higher-level assemblies. In this class, the students will form small, interdisciplinary teams and develop one project together. Supported by hardware and software tutorials as well as guest lectures from industry experts, the students will learn how to accurately measure existing objects and use this data for the modeling of customized fixtures and connectors. In their final project, the students are asked to choose three otherwise incompatible devices and conceptualize a special adapter that modifies and translates geometrical characteristics, structural attributes, and functionalities from one object to another and thereby turns this tripartite structure into a functional unit, capable of occupying a promising new application niche.
Simon Schleicher | 3 units
TOPICS: 3D PRINTING, COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN, MATERIALS
This semester-long course introduces students to bioengineering project-based learning in small teams, with a strong emphasis on need-based solutions for real medical and research problems through prototype solution selection, design, and testing. The course is designed to provide a “capstone” design experience for bioengineering seniors.
Amy Herr | 4 units
TOPICS: HEALTH
This course involves the design and prototype of large-scale technology intensive systems. Possible design projects, incorporating infrastructure systems and areas such as transportation and hydrology, include watershed sensor networks, robot networks for environmental management, mobile Internet monitoring, open societal scale systems, crowdsourced applications, traffic management, and more.
Scott Moura | 3 units
TOPICS: MOBILITY, SUSTAINABILITY
CS 160 is an introduction to Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Students will learn to prototype, evaluate, and design a user interface. They will be expected to work within a group of four or five students in this project-based course. A project topic will be proposed by each student group, and implementation will be tailored to users’ needs based on interviews with them. The focus of the course is on developing a broad set of skills needed for user-centered design. These skills include ideation, needs assessment, communication, rapid prototyping, algorithmic implementation, and evaluation.
Eric Paulos | 4 units
This introductory course aims to expose you to the mindset, skillset and toolset associated with design. It does so through guided applications to framing and solving problems in design, business and engineering. Specifically, you will learn approaches to noticing and observing, framing and reframing, imagining and designing, and experimenting and testing as well as for critique and reflection. You will also have a chance to apply those approaches in various sectors.
Emily Au | 3 units
Good ideas alone are not the key to being a great designer or innovator. Rather, it’s the strong process and communication skills that will make you stand out as a design practitioner and leader. In today’s landscape of product design and innovation, great visual communicators must know how to 1) effectively and confidently sketch by hand, 2) understand and utilize the basics of visual design, and 3) tell captivating and compelling stories. This course, offered in a project-based learning format, will give participants practice and confidence in their ability to communicate visually.
Purin Phanichphant | 3 units
This course teaches concepts, skills and methods required to design, prototype, and fabricate physical objects. Each week relevant techniques in 2D and 3D modeling and fabrication are presented, along with basic electronics. Topics include a range of prototyping and fabrication techniques including laser-cutting, 3D modeling and 3D printing, soldering, and basic circuits.
Chris Myers | 3 units
TOPICS: 3D PRINTING, LASER CUTTING
In this one-semester, P/NP course, students will attend the weekly Design Field Notes speaker series, which features local design practitioners who share real-world stories about their projects, practices, and perspectives. Talks are scheduled most weeks during the semester; during any off weeks, students will engage in facilitated discussions.
Yoon Bahk | 1 unit
In Reimagining Mobility, students will envision meaningful interactions between people and different transportation modalities. Looking 10-15 years into the future, they will address elements such as car sharing, public transportation, autonomous driving, and more. The first phase of the course will focus on the early stages of the design process, including problem framing and user research. The second phase of the course will focus on the latter stages of the design process, including proposing solutions, prototyping, and storytelling. The course will be taught by an expert design instructor from the Jacobs Institute, with additional feedback from mentors from Ford’s Greenfield Labs.
Purin Phanichphant | 3 units
Through the new concept of Ancestry Thinking, this course will propose ideas to broaden our understanding of the technological ecosystem we live in. Throughout the semester students will discuss ways to internalize what would otherwise remain as externalities or byproducts of technological and design developments. Designs techniques to look beyond the immediate will be explored, studied, and operationalized. This course addresses long-term effects of design decisions and offers strategies for exposing long-term pitfalls, problems, and negative effects. The goal is to develop proficiency within existing design practices to enable a long-range design framing that will result in broader, more sustainable technological and societal impacts while avoiding quick near-term solutions that have detrimental long-term consequences. The ethical issues of balance and tradeoff between these real design challenges will be confronted and operationalized through class activities and interrogations. Our goal is to enable future technology practitioners to build holistic narratives around their resulting final designs and within their design practice.
Alan Cooper | 2 units
This course provides hands-on experience in designing prostheses and assistive technologies using user-centered design. Students will develop a fundamental understanding of the state-of-the-art, design processes and product realization. Teams will prototype a novel non-invasive solution to a disabilities-related challenge, focusing on upper-limb mobility or dexterity. Lessons will cover biomechanics of manipulation, tactile sensing and haptics, actuation and mechanism robustness, and control interfaces. Readings will be selected from academic journals and course notes. Guest speakers will be invited to address cutting edge breakthroughs relevant to assistive tech.
Hannah Stuart | 4 units
This class serves as an attractive and easy introduction to electronic product design elements for freshmen and sophomores. It is intended to expose students at a very early stage to interesting and surprising design features inside electronic device products.
Jeffrey Bokor | 2 units
E 27 is a hands-on introduction to manufacturing and tolerancing that is a required lower-division course for mechanical engineering majors and is open to students from across campus. Students work in teams of 4-7 on a series of practical assignments in which they reverse-engineer manufactured products, study the dimensional variability of manufactured components, and undertake a mechanical design project.
Sara McMains | 2 units
TOPICS: MANUFACTURING
This is a survey course focusing on product design. Through a combination of weekly activities, readings and hands-on projects, students will learn the processes and methods of product design, from framing through ideation to final concepts. Students will practice methods for design research, concept development, rapid prototyping and user testing. They will learn key methods of design innovation, learning how to uncover opportunities, explore ideas, prototype solutions, test concepts and interact with users. Students will do weekly project assignments aimed at illustrating the concepts discussed in class and readings. Students will also work in teams to plan, design, develop and test a product or service to the prototype stage.
Rachel Powers | 3 units
Aimed at graduate students and post docs, this course provides a methodical way to take their research into a startup. The purpose of this course is to prepare scientists, researchers, and engineers at Berkeley to be business-literate and learn how to their knowledge can be applied to current industry trends, using the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship. This course is being offered in collaboration with the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, NSF I-Corps, and CITRIS.
Naeem Zafar | 3 units
This class aims to introduce students to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), from a feedback controls perspective. In addition to the theoretical component, the class will have a substantial laboratory focus. Students will learn the theory necessary to model, understand, and design a controller for a UAV. Through the semesters, the students will implement a feedback controller on a UAV to allow it to hover, culminating in a competition at the end off the semester to compare performance.
Mark Mueller | 3 units
TOPICS: ROBOTICS
This course aims to introduce students to designing products that interface with the human body with the unique biomechanics in mind. 3D printing is used for rapid prototyping, testing, and customizing designs for a user or industry client. Throughout the semester, students will learn about tissue and body-level biomechanics. The learned knowledge will be applied in designing prototypes to solve problems provided by industry mentors.
Grace O’Connell | 3 units
This course provides hands-on experience in the development of innovative and realistic customer-driven engineered products, services, or systems. Design methods and tools are introduced, and the student’s design ability is developed in a design project or equivalent. The course is organized around the following modules: observing & noticing, framing & reframing, imagining & designing, making & experimenting, and communication & visualization. Students will use tools and methods of professional practice to consider the social, economic, and environmental implications of their products, services, or systems.
Sara Beckman | 3 units
A hands-on, studio design course where students work at the intersection of technological innovation and socially engaged art. Students will integrate a suite of digital fabrication tools with social design methods to create work that engages in cultural critique. Working with innovative technologies and radical, new art practices, this course will explore: hybrid art forms, critical design for community engagement, interventions in public spaces, tactical media and disobedient objects. These new making strategies will reframe our notions of people, places and participation.
Jill Miller | 4 units
TOPICS: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT, SPECULATIVE DESIGN
Throughout the Fung Fellowship program, a diverse cohort of undergraduate students participate in a cross-disciplinary, experience-based curriculum that integrates design thinking and an immersive community experience. Fellows work in teams to develop technology solutions to address the real-world public health challenges facing at-risk populations. This course provides a space for the Fung Fellowship cohort’s teamwork and project-based learning.
Jaspal Sandhu & Jennifer Mangold | 3 units
TOPICS: HEALTH