This page lists courses held in Jacobs Hall during spring 2019. To see Jacobs Hall course listings from other semesters, please visit our primary course listings page.
This course will explore how we observe and interpret our visual world. We will examine material from a wide range of sources, focusing on the social, political, and cultural connections, as well as the conceptual base and formal properties that comprise a particular visual/sensory experience. Two ongoing concerns will be the exploration of how art and life intersect, and how our perceptions of what constitute the “high” and “low” in collective culture establish our beliefs about art. The course requires the completion of three projects that stress the visual, intellectual and intuitive aspects of art making. Shari Paladino | 4 units
The design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces. User-centered design and task analysis. Conceptual models and interface metaphors. Usability inspection and evaluation methods. Analysis of user study data. Input methods (keyboard, pointing, touch, tangible) and input models. Visual design principles. Interface prototyping and implementation methodologies and tools. Students will develop a user interface for a specific task and target user group in teams. Bjoern Hartmann | 4 units
This class introduces computational techniques useful for design and fabrication and explores software compilation of high level 3D designs into simple and inexpensive parts ready for rapid manufacturing. Topics include: fabrication processes, material systems, and modern computational techniques for domain specific design, geometric transformations, and algorithmic preparation for fabrication. Jonathan Bachrach | 4 unit
This is a course for aspiring teachers or those who want to instruct with expertise from evidence-based research and proven best practices. It provides pedagogical training by introducing the Big Ideas of Teaching and Learning, and illustrating how to put them into practice. The course is divided into three sections—instructing the individual; a group; and psycho-social factors that greatly affect learning at any level. These sections are designed to enhance any intern’s, tutor’s, or TA’s skillset. Class is discussion based, and covers theoretical and practical pedagogical aspects to teaching in STEM. An integral feature of the course involves providing weekly tutoring sessions. Christopher Hunn | 3 units
This course, ideal for students who are looking for an introduction to the broad world of design, covers design careers, design fields, histories of design and ethics in design. Students will gain language for analyzing and characterizing designs. In this course, you will be learning design both from theoretical and historical perspectives and from studio-based design exercises and projects. The weekly assignments and final projects will emphasize foundational design skills in observation, ideation, problem finding and problem-solving, form giving, communication, and critique. Yoon Bahk | 2 units
Good ideas alone are not the key to being a great designer or innovator. Rather, it is 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 techniques to conceptualize, design and prototype interactive objects. Students will learn core interaction design principles and learn how to program devices with and without screens, basic circuit design and construction for sensing and actuation, and debugging. Students work individually on fundamental concepts and skills, then form teams to work on an open-ended design project that requires a synthesis of the different techniques covered. This course may be used to fulfill undergraduate technical elective requirements for some College of Engineering majors; students should refer to their Engineering Student Services advisors for more details. Kuan-Ju Wu | 3 units
This studio course introduces students to design thinking and the basic practices of interaction design. Following a human-centered design process that includes research, concept generation, prototyping, and refinement, students work as individuals and in small teams to design mobile information systems and other interactive experiences. Becoming familiar with design methodologies such as sketching, storyboarding, wire framing, and prototyping, students learn core skills for understanding the rich contexts of stakeholders and their interactions with technology, for researching competing products and services, for modeling the current and preferred state of the world, and for prototyping and communicating solutions. No coding is required. Instructor TBA | 3 units
This lecture series exposes students to a diverse range of leaders, innovators, and concepts in design innovation. Students will learn from speakers, who will share their insights, practices, and projects from working at the intersections of design and technology innovation. 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. Purin Phanichphant | 3 units
Global Product Development is a project-based course that aims to educate students about the process of translating a functional prototype into a commercial, consumer-ready product. This course will provide a high-level overview of the many important aspects of product commercialization, including design for manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, intellectual property and regulatory certification, and more. The course includes a field trip to Hong Kong and China during spring break 2019. Emily Au | 3 units
Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), tolerance analysis for fabrication, fundamentals of manufacturing processes (metal cutting, welding, joining, casting, molding, and layered manufacturing). Hayden Taylor | 2 units
Bioinspired design views the process of how we learn from nature as an innovation strategy translating principles of function, performance, and aesthetics from biology to human technology. The creative design process is driven by interdisciplinary exchange among engineering, biology, medicine, art, architecture, and business. Diverse teams of students will collaborate on, create, and present original bioinspired design projects. Project teams will have opportunities to learn about team dynamics and how to make a successful team. Lectures will address the biomimicry design process from original scientific breakthroughs to entrepreneurial start-ups using cases studies that include gecko-inspired adhesives, robots that run, fly and swim, artificial muscles, computer animation, medical devices, and prosthetics while highlighting health, the environment, and safety. Robert Full | 3 units
Too often, enamored in our brilliant ideas, we skip the most important part: building products consumers will want and use. Precious time and effort are wasted on engineering perfect products only to launch to no users. This course teaches product management skills such as reducing risk while accelerating time to market, product life cycle and stakeholder management. Kenneth Sandy | 3 units
This is a project-based course that uses a learn-by-doing approach to build product design and management skills. Using Design Thinking tools and methods, students will uncover core user need and specify functional requirements for a new product or service. During the course, students will learn to design a product or service, the basics of human factors, allocate resources, manage product teams and conceive and implement a go to market plan for their product or service. Rachel Powers | 3 units
The objective of this course is to prepare graduate students and post-doctoral students across all disciplines to be able to translate technical work into value as a new venture or in industry settings. The course combines the methods and learning between the School of Engineering (SCET) and NSF I-Corps to create a compact program with big impact. Naeem Zafar | 3 units
The course provides project-based learning experience in innovative new product development, with a focus on mechanical engineering systems. Design concepts and techniques are introduced, and the student’s design ability is developed in a design or feasibility study chosen to emphasize ingenuity and provide wide coverage of engineering topics. Relevant software will be integrated into studio sessions, including solid modeling and environmental life cycle analysis. Design optimization and social, economic, and political implications are included. Ala Moradian | 3 units
The focus of the course is management of innovation processes for sustainable products, from product definition to sustainable manufacturing. Using a project in which students will be asked to design and develop a product or service focused on sustainability, we will teach design processes for collecting customer and user needs data, prioritizing that data, developing a product specification, sketching and building product prototypes, communications. Euiyoung Kim & Kosa Goucher-Lambert | 3 units
Critical Making will operationalize and critique the practice of “making” through both foundational literature and hands on studio culture. As hybrid practitioners, students will develop fluency in readily collaging and incorporating a variety of physical materials and protocols into their practice. With design research as a lens, students will envision and create future computational experiences that critically explore social and culturally relevant technological themes such as community, privacy, environment, education, economics, energy, food, biology, democracy, activism, healthcare, social justice, etc. Eric Paulos | 4 units
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 teamwork and project-based learning. Jaspal Sandhu & Jennifer Mangold
Students will have the chance to prototype a new experimental performance with internationally renowned director, playwright, and Cal alum, Stan Lai (“The best Chinese language playwright and director in the world.” (BBC). As in Lai’s 2000 workshop at Berkeley that created the foundation for one of Lai’s most acclaimed works, “A DREAM LIKE A DREAM,” (“possibly the greatest Chinese-language play since time immemorial” – China Daily) student actors will work with Lai in the creation of “AGO,” a new theatre piece inspired by Buddhist stories from ancient scriptures, and from modern life. Lai will teach and utilize his methods of using improvisation as a tool to create a script, methods he learned at Berkeley while a graduate student in the 80s, by sharing with the class the complete journey to creating a mature work for the theatre. Student playwrights and student assistant directors will have the unique opportunity to observe Lai’s creative process. Meanwhile, students with primary interests in design and technical support will learn the process of developing a performance design concept. Stan Lai | 3 units
In this hands-on, project-based class, students will experience group creativity and team-based design by using techniques from across the disciplines of business, theatre, design, and art practice. They will leverage problem framing and solving techniques derived from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving (popularly known today as design thinking). The course is grounded in a brief weekly lecture that sets out the theoretical, historical, and cultural contexts for particular innovation practices, but the majority of the class involves hands-on studio-based learning guided by an interdisciplinary team of teachers leading small group collaborative projects. Sara Beckman, Tak Ming Chuang, Angela Marino, & Lisa Wymore | 4 units