Tag Archives: teaching

2016 Ubicomp course

During the fall 2016 semester I will be teaching a course exploring the fundamentals of ubiquitous (or pervasive) computing. The course is listed as ECE 724/824 Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals. This is the fourth time this course will run – the first time was in 2010.

Ubicomp certificate
The course is a required course for the new Graduate Certificate in Ubiquitous Computing.

Why ubiquitous computing?
We have entered the third era of modern computing. This era is defined by computing devices that are embedded in everyday objects and become part of everyday activities. These devices are also connected to other devices or networks in an effort to share or gather information.  Ubiquitous computing is a multidisciplinary field of study that explores the design and implementation of such embedded, networked computing devices.

The course in a nutshell
The Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals course has two major thrusts:

1. Lectures: Lectures introducing fundamental material from papers, a textbook edited by John Krumm, and many research videos. Topics covered will include system software for supporting ubicomp, human-computer interaction in ubicomp systems, privacy issues, context awareness, and location-based services.
2. Projects: Following a project requirements document, students (teams or individuals) will first select topics, with the guidance of the instructor. They will then prepare a proposal, complete the project, and report on it at the end of the semester through a written document and an oral presentation. Videos are encouraged.

Two past projects
Here are two videos from 2010 to give you a taste for what a ubicomp project might look like.

Video 1: Data entry using handheld computers vs. paper

Video 2: Exploring group interaction with a multi-touch table

Who is this course for?
Students who will most benefit from the course are seniors, graduate students, and professionals with an EE, CompE, CS and IT background.

Organizational details
The course will run online asynchronously. There will be no in-class meetings.

For grading and such see the ECE900-Online-Syllabus.

Questions?
Send email to andrew DOT kun AT unh DOT edu.

2015 ubicomp course

During the fall 2015 semester I will be teaching a course exploring the fundamentals of ubiquitous (or pervasive) computing. The course is listed as ECE 796/896 Spc Top/Ubiquitous Computing. (It will soon be ECE 724/824.) This is the third time this course will run – the first time was in 2010.

Why ubiquitous computing?
We have entered the third era of modern computing. This era is defined by computing devices that are embedded in everyday objects and become part of everyday activities. These devices are also connected to other devices or networks in an effort to share or gather information.  Ubiquitous computing is a multidisciplinary field of study that explores the design and implementation of such embedded, networked computing devices.

The course in a nutshell
The Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals course has two major thrusts:

1. Lectures: Lectures introducing fundamental material from papers, a textbook edited by John Krumm, and close to 40 research videos. Topics covered will include system software for supporting percom, human-computer interaction in ubicomp systems, privacy issues, context awareness, and location-based services.
2. Projects: Following a project requirements document, students (teams or individuals) will first select topics, with the guidance of the instructor. They will then prepare a proposal, complete the project, and report on it at the end of the semester through a written document and an oral presentation. Videos are encouraged.

Two past projects
Here are two videos from 2010 to give you a taste for what a ubicomp project might look like.

Video 1: Data entry using handheld computers vs. paper

Video 2: Exploring group interaction with a multi-touch table

Who is this course for?
Students who will most benefit from the course are EE, CompE, CS and IT seniors and graduate students.

Organizational details
Class will meet TR 11-12:30. There will be an open lab in Morse 213.

For grading and such see the 2015 syllabus.

Questions?
Send email to andrew DOT kun AT unh DOT edu.

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2013 Liberty Mutual visit to UNH ECE

Yesterday I hosted four researchers from the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety: Bill Horrey, Yulan Liang, Angela Garabet, and Luci Simmons. This visit follows my recent visit to Liberty Mutual this summer.

As part of the visit, Bill gave a talk to my ECE 900 class. He discussed the wide variety of research performed at his institute, with an emphasis on the vehicle-related work that he is involved in. As part of this work Bill and colleagues conduct studies on a test track with an instrumented vehicle, which they brought along:

After the talk Tom Miller and I had a chance to show our visitors our driving simulator lab and discuss a host of research issues. It was fun – thanks Bill, Yulan, Angela and Luci.

See pictures from the visit on Flickr.

 

2013 UNH ECE Graduate Student Research Poster Session – a brief review

During the 2012-2013 academic year, I taught the UNH ECE Graduate Seminar (ECE 900), a course I first introduced in the fall of 2002. At the end of the two-semester sequence, students submitted a short research proposal. A new aspect of the course was the 2013 UNH ECE Graduate Student Research Poster Session. In this session students introduced their research proposal in a poster presentation.

The session started with a one-minute madness where students had 60 seconds to entice attendees to visit their posters. In attendance were many UNH ECE faculty, as well as staff and students from the IOL, the OISS, and UNH ECE. At the end of the session all in attendance (presenters and visitors) were asked to cast a vote for the best poster. With over 20 votes cast, Carol Perkins and Chris Chirgwin were tied for first. Carol works at the IOL and her poster introduced work on securing the nation’s power infrastructure. Chris works with John LaCourse and Paula McWilliam, and his poster introduced work on a force-sensing laryngoscope. Here are Carol and Chris with the winning posters:

You can see more photos from this event on Flickr.

 

Fall 2013 Pervasive Computing Course

During the fall 2013 semester I will be teaching a course exploring the fundamentals of pervasive (or ubiquitous) computing. The course is listed as ECE 796/896 Spc Top/Pervasive Computing. This is the second time I’ll teach this course – the first time was in 2010.

Why pervasive computing?
We have entered the third era of modern computing. This era is defined by computing devices that are embedded in everyday objects and become part of everyday activities. These devices are also connected to other devices or networks in an effort to share or gather information.  Pervasive computing is a multidisciplinary field of study that explores the design and implementation of such embedded, networked computing devices. The field is young but it is developing fast and appears to have unstoppable momentum.

The course in a nutshell
The Pervasive Computing Fundamentals course has two major thrusts:

1. Lectures: Lectures introducing fundamental material from papers, a textbook edited by John Krumm, and close to 40 research videos. Topics covered will include system software for supporting percom, human-computer interaction in percom systems, privacy issues, context awareness, and location-based services.
2. Projects: Following a project requirements document, students (teams and individuals) will first select topics, with the guidance of the instructor. They will then prepare a proposal, complete the project, and report on it at the end of the semester through a written document and an oral presentation. Videos are encouraged.

 

Collaborative projects with Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is one of the leading art, design and architecture schools in the US. Its Industrial Design Department is consistently ranked in the top 5 in the country. Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman is a multi-disciplinary designer and the founder of RPF Design Studio. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Pratt. During the fall 2013 semester she will teach a junior studio on wearable technology for industrial design students. Rebeccah and I will help Pratt and UNH students form project teams. UNH students will primarily be responsible for the hardware and software development, while Pratt students will incorporate the hardware/software into wearable objects. Collaborating with Pratt students is not a requirement for UNH students, but it is highly encouraged (hopefully we can also go on a field trip to Pratt).

Two past projects
Here are two videos from 2010 to give you a taste for what a percom project might look like. Actually, if you collaborate with Pratt students, it’ll look even better – check out ID View 2012 for visuals of what you can expect.

Video 1: Data entry using handheld computers vs. paper

Video 2: Exploring group interaction with a multi-touch table

Who is this course for?
Students who will most benefit from the course are EE, CompE, CS and IT seniors and graduate students.

Organizational details
Class will meet MWF 4-5 PM. There will be an open lab in Morse 213 (ignore the lab time in the Time and Room Schedule).

For grading and such see the 2010 syllabus. The 2013 syllabus will be very similar.

Questions?
Send me email.

Introducing ubiquitous computing through videos

Students and technical professionals can quickly gain an introduction to a variety of topics in pervasive/ubiquitous computing by watching online research videos. Of course, watching videos is no replacement for reading papers (yes, starting with Weiser’s) and using an excellent textbook, such as John Krumm‘s ubicomp fundamentals. Yet, videos can quickly convey many basic ubicomp ideas in an engaging manner.

Good places to look for videos are the usual suspects: Vimeo and YouTube. Additionally, many conferences now allow uploading videos as support material for papers, and conferences such as Ubicomp and Pervasive have tracks dedicated to video submissions (see e.g. Ubicomp 2012 and Pervasive 2012).

In my 2010 intro ubicomp course I used the following videos, grouped by general topic area:

Field studies:

  1. Project54 police radio study (YouTube)
  2. Tagging photographs using voice commands (YouTube)
  3. Linking with Flickr using voice commands (YouTube)
  4. AmbiKraf (YouTube)
  5. HealthLine: Information Access for Community Health Workers in Developing Regions (YouTube)
  6. LINC, An Inkable Digital Family Calendar (YouTube)
  7. Rexplorer – an urban interactive game for tourists (YouTube)

Privacy:

  1. Sharing data on public displays: academic transcript example (YouTube)
  2. Sharing data on public displays: family pictures example (YouTube)
  3. Sharing data on public displays: map example (YouTube)
  4. Multi-user interaction using handheld projectors (YouTube)
  5. Empathy mirror (YouTube – removed) (Website)
  6. How to hack RFID-enabled credit cards for $8 (YouTube)
  7. IBM RFID commercial (YouTube)
  8. Minority report – mall scene (YouTube)
  9. RFID parking access control long range system (YouTube)
  10. Sensecam: Cambridge day out (YouTube)
  11. The Ambient Clock (YouTube)
  12. The RFID Ecosystem Project (YouTube)

User interfaces:

  1. Natural User Interfaces: Utilizing physiological data (YouTube)
  2. Skinput: Appropriating the body as an input surface (YouTube)
  3. 10GUI: 10 finger multitouch user interface (YouTube)
  4. BumpTop 3D multi-touch desktop (YouTube)
  5. Ford SYNC and Pandora (YouTube)
  6. Google Maps navigation (Beta) (YouTube)
  7. Microsoft Courier in action (YouTube)
  8. Microsoft Research: Project Gustav (YouTube)
  9. Microsoft future vision: productivity (YouTube)
  10. Microsoft’s vision of the future (Parody) (YouTube)
  11. Microsoft future vision: Windows home concept (YouTube)
  12. Microsoft future vision: manufacturing (YouTube)
  13. Microsoft future vision: personal health (YouTube)
  14. Microsoft future vision: banking (YouTube)
  15. Microsoft future vision: retail (YouTube)
  16. NanoTouch (YouTube)
  17. Reboard (YouTube)
  18. The invisible train (YouTube)
  19. Searchvox (website)

Of course this list is now 2 years old – time to update!

Summer course to introduce tools of research

Click image for source

This summer I’ll be teaching ECE 900 Electrical and Computer Engineering Seminar. The seminar introduces graduate students to the general tools of research. Students gain practical experience with framing research questions, setting goals, and proposing hypotheses. We also discuss ideas on how to read, write and review research publications, and on how to give oral presentations about such documents to different types of audiences. Finally, we explore best practices for success in graduate school.

A key outcome of the seminar is a research proposal. Proposals address the steps required to complete the research requirement of students’ graduate degrees (MS or PhD).

Interested? Please take a look at the facts below and/or send me email with questions and suggestions.

Who is this course for?
While ECE 900 is a requirement for UNH ECE graduate students, the course is open to graduate students from all UNH departments. I certainly hope non-ECE students will join us this summer.

Will the course be online?
Yes. Students resident at UNH can participate in person, remote students can participate online (no in-class meetings required).

How many credits?
During the academic year ECE 900 is offered both in the fall and spring. Material covered in the spring builds on that covered in the fall. Similarly, the summer course will run in two consecutive sections, each four weeks long. Section 1 will cover material covered in ECE 900 in the fall, while section 2 will cover the spring material. Students will earn 2 credits for completing each section, for a total of 4 credits for the summer.

What are the prerequisites?
Graduate standing.

Is there online material from previous years?
Yes, e.g. fall 2010 and spring 2011.

Schedule
ECE 900, Section 1 (fall material): June 11-July 6, Tuesdays and Thursdays 12-2 PM
ECE 900, Section 2 (spring material): July 9 – August 3, Tuesdays and Thursdays 12-2 PM

Report on Fundamentals of Ubicomp course

During the spring 2010 semester I taught a new course entitled Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals. The term ubiquitous computing refers to the model of computing in which computers are embedded in everyday objects and become part of everyday activities. As the name implies, this course was designed as an introduction to this exciting field of study.

In this course I used the excellent new ubicomp textbook [1] edited by John Krumm. I highly recommend this book to anyone starting out in the field of ubicomp. Specifically, I like two aspects of the book. First, the team of contributors assembled by John provides a comprehensive introduction to the myriad topics that make up the ubicomp field. The fact that ubicomp is an interdisciplinary field is exciting, but getting an overview of the field may seem like a daunting task. The textbook provides this overview. Second, paraphrasing Aaron Quigley‘s assessment of his chapter [2], the book provides “an entry point” to the world of conducting research in general, and ubicomp research in particular. The contributors discuss the tools used in various aspects of ubicomp research, from prototyping, to user studies, to data processing. The individual chapters help the reader formulate research questions and steps, and provide valuable tips on how to report on results. 

The course covered three topic areas:

  • History of ubicomp. The semester started with Weiser’s seminal paper [3] and with a textbook chapter introducing ubicomp by Roy Want, one of Weiser’s collaborators at Xerox PARC.
  • Building ubicomp systems. We discussed various aspects of creating ubicomp systems, from writing always-on software, to privacy, to conducting laboratory and field experiments.
  • The user experience. As this is my research focus, we spent a considerable amount of time discussion user interactions with ubicomp systems, from speech interactions, to multi-touch tables, to tangible user interfaces.

I found that an excellent way to discuss ubicomp topics is to take advantage of research videos posted online. We viewed many such videos and this led to productive discussions. We also benefited from excellent talks by Marko Popovic, Bret Harsham and Albrecht Schmidt.

I felt that the course was a success. Students indicated that they liked the course and thought that it was useful. The course also allowed students to express themselves creatively through the course project. The results were impressive and I’ll end this post with an example. The video below is the work of UNH ECE seniors Amy Schwarzenberg and Kyle Maroney (both graduated in May). Amy and Kyle explored user interactions with a Microsoft Surface multi-touch table.

References

[1] John Krumm (editor), “Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals,” CRC Press, 2010

[2] Aaron Quigley, “From GUI to UUI: Interfaces for Ubiquitous Computing,” in John Krumm (editor), “Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals,” CRC Press, 2010

[3] Mark Weiser, “The Computer for the 21st century,” Scientific American, pp. 94-10, September 1991