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Shima Seiki is a world renowned manufacturer of computerized knitting equipment from Wakayama, Japan. This course introduces students to the basics of how to create digital programs for a Shima Seiki WholeGarment(TM) knitting machine. Students will be given a rapid introduction to the essentials of knitting and knit programming for a variety of applications. Initial projects will allow students to practice and develop their knit programming skills. The remaining two thirds of the course is devoted to student projects that develop innovative concepts and techniques in their respective domains. Students will be grouped by areas of interest in order to fully program and produce a project of their collective design. The course provides the student with extended textile and technology skills that supports their individual design philosophy. This course is in close connection to the Making Center's L2 Knit Lab: students are required to devote significant time outside of class to complete assignments in the Making Center.

In this Collab, students will travel over a 10-day period to Berlin, Köln, and Paris, over Thanksgiving break [November 21st-December 1st], 2019. The course will occur in participation with students from KISD (Köln International School of Design]. The course project will focus on exploring, researching, and producing VR sketches about experiences and cultural locations visited on the trip, under the overarching question: “how might VR be used in the future of documentation and journalism?". Students will work in groups with other Parsons and KISD students, with new groups assigned each day. Tools such as Unity, Google VR, GoPro, Samsung Gear, Risc, and Vive (and others) will be used— no prior experience is necessary (tech workshops will be held prior to trip departure). Groups will submit daily sketches, and each student will be responsible for an overall trip report sure at semester's end. There will be frequent group activities while traveling, but plenty of time for individual exploration as well. Students are responsible for communicating with NY faculty regarding all missed classes (usually not more than one per section, which is why we schedule the trip over Thanksgiving). Costs: Participants are responsible for all travel expenses (lodging, airfare— to and from NY, and within Europe, food, and incidental expenses while in Berlin, Köln, and Paris). Students are responsible for obtaining their own necessary visas for travel to Europe, as needed. There will be a separate course fee of $300, payable upon registration. No scholarship is available. Registration by faculty permission only— this will be determined in early September, 2019, when the fall 2019 semester is underway. Space is strictly limited.

Food by Design is a course for students interested in exploring and working in the edges of the design and technology practices. It will be focused on fundamentals of design and interaction design working with the unusual elements, processes and context of food. The goal is to reconsider the traditional role of food and feed back learnings from food materials, contexts, processes, methodologies, experiences and objects to our current understanding of design. Can food teach us a new perspective on design? Can design, innovation and fiction reframe how we experience food? The class will have regular readings, assignments and design-build projects leveraging contemporary technologies to project a critical light and speculate about the pasts, presents and futures of food. The students are expected to have some basic cooking abilities and prior design, tech and prototyping skills to rapidly iterate their ideas. There will be lectures from food-related experts, guests and class discussions to inspire and support the development of students and their concepts.

While the primary audience for XR today is gaming, immersive media show potential to augment reality in varied and exciting ways. Industries like Architecture, Interior Design, Urban Design, Product and Industrial Design, medical and scientific research, as well as in the design and development of transportation, museums and retail institutions can all be enhanced through the use of AR, VR and 360° cinematography. This course will explore how XR technologies can be applied to these numerous industries. This course will explore the history of immersive media, pioneers of VR, current applications of VR, the relationship between AR and VR, and extensions of VR that connect it to the real world. Students will work in a variety of platforms depending on their own interests, including Unity, UE, Blueprint, Playmaker, Grasshopper, Rhino and 3D Studio Max.

Digital interactions are no longer limited to our personal devices but are now increasingly becoming part of the out of home environment. Out of home advertising in the form of billboards and signage found on sidewalks, roads, highways, in transit, and other public places while previously considered a traditional advertising medium has seen significant digital growth in recent years. In this collab students will partner with Outfront Media - the MTA’s partner for out of home advertising and digital communications. Currently Outfront Media has installed and continues to maintain 590 digital boards across 39 New York City subway stations. This class will be a deep dive into NodeJS, an exploration in data driven design, and an opportunity to challenge what's possible in an emerging media format. This class will partially meet at Outfront Media’s office at 140 Broadway where students will have access to the Outfront Media team as well as Outfront’s media lab ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTR8w7UdvjI&feature=youtu.be ).