CTIN 405 — Design Technology for Mobile Experiences
Based on the great success of the mobile module during 541, I am pleased to introduce a revampled CTIN 405 — Design Technology for Mobile Experiences for next semester (this Spring).
Map to the ACC. The Mobile and Pervasive Lab is located in the Kerckhoff Carriage House to the left (as you face the mansion) and behind the main Kerckhoff mansion.
CTIN 405 Spring 2006 Course Reader
The course will focus on hands-on implementation topics for creating truly cool mobile phone, location-based applications. We'll be working with a bunch of very accessible DIY technologies, including VXML, SMS and J2ME, all of which should appeal to the creative and aspirational art, game and woot-woot-mobile developers.
Implementing Story and Entertainment Projects for Mobile Phones
The objective of this course is for students to develop a strong sense of the design challenges and opportunities presented by mobile technologies. Through readings, discussions, and hands-on development students will develop critical and pragmatic insights into designing mobile experiences and technology. Students will form design groups to execute a mobile project design using the principles from readings and class discussions.
Implementation Topic Weeks: Students will develop an overview and some hands-on experience designing applications for a mobile phone.
- We will learn how to develop an interactive voice-response, voice-recognition game using VXML (Voice XML), a simple technology for creating phone-based interaction systems. The technology is similar to that used for the EA game "Majestic" including voice recognition, voice-based web pages, touch-tone phone based interactive games, capture of phone call audio, outbound calling (i.e. initiate a call to another phone).
- How to use SMS (short message service) systems for interactive applications, games and other usage scenarios. Send SMS, receive and process SMS, use SMS as a "trigger" for other events on and offline.
- Learn the fundamentals of developing mobile phone-based applications using J2ME, an environment that supports developing games and other applications for many mobile phones.
- Learn how to integrate external hardware to a mobile phone over a Bluetooth connection. This can make your mobile phone "talk" to a GPS, for example, or other external hardware (e.g. pedometer, compass, light sensor, etc.)
Projects: Each student will be required to participate in developing a final project for the course.
Project Ideas: Some ideas, by no means exhaustive, for final projects include:
- A mobile phone version of the parlor game "Telephone" (aka "Chinese Whispers") using VXML and SMS.
- A multiplayer, location-aware J2ME mobile phone version of a treasure hunt game
- A application that translates an SMS message through text-to-speech for delivery to a non-SMS enabled (e.g. home) phone.
The course will also include prior art review, discussions and readings associated with the topics from the art-technology and mobile games worlds.
As Mark Bolas and I discovered in 541, everyone here has an exceptional aptitude for conceiving, desiging, implementing and deploying mobile apps, both for the browser and for the mobile phone. This class will be an excellent opportunity to skill up. At the end of this class, you'll have some real, executed mobile app to add to your portfolio. Real bang for your buck, as they say.
The syllabus will be posted shortly.
2 credits, tentatively scheduled for Wednesdays from 2:30-4:30.
I'm curious who's interested, so please RSVP or let me know if you have any questions!