17-422/722,05-499/899: Building User-focused Sensing Systems Syllabus

Textbook

This course does not have a specific textbook. However, the students are supposed to read papers and actively join the class discussions

Lecture Overview

This class is intended to be highly interactive and each class is either a discussion, tutorial, or a walkthrough.

Discussions All discussions will be kicked off by the instructor. Prior to class, all students are required to post a paragraph summary of the reading(s) and questions or discussion points to the message board. The highlighted papers on the schedule are the required papers, but additional optional papers are also listed that you can use for reference either in this class or in the future.
Tutorial and Walkthroughs All tutorials and walkthroughs will be led by the instructor. In each such lecture, the students will be introduced to a new technology, ranging from programming for Android phones to 3D modeling and printing to making inferences from wireless data. Most tutorials will be followed by mini-projects/assignments. Although not required, you are allowed to work in groups to learn the material, but are required to complete and submit individual work. The final project will be completed over a period of 1.5 months in teams of up to 3 students.

Grading

Students will be evaluated based on their mini projects/assignments, class participation, reading summaries, and the final project. Students are expected to have the readings and summaries completed prior to class (see class schedule). Note that class discussion will largely be based on these readings. Also, students should inform the instructor on any work travel or other commitments that might arise during the semester.

45% Final project
35% Assignments (3.5)
10% Reading summaries
10% Class participation

For more information about the assignments/project component, see the assignments page.

Schedule

Also available as an ical file that you can subscribe to.

Date	Type	Topics	Readings	Notes
Mon 01/13	Discussion	Introduction to Class and Logistics
Wed 01/15	Discussion	Age of Sensing and its Various Applications	Mark Weiser. The Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American, September 1991.	A0 Assigned
Mon 01/20		No Class (MLK Jr. Day - Holiday!)		A0 Due
Wed 01/22	Discussion	Ubicomp And Activity Recognition	Laput et al. Ubicoustics - Plug-and-Play Acoustic Activity Recognition UIST 2018
Mon 01/27	Tutorial	Phone Programming 101		A1 Assigned
Wed 01/29	Discussion	Motion Sensing on Phones and Signal Processing
Mon 02/03	Discussion	Wearable Computing	Detachable Smartwatch -- More Than A Wearable	Initial Project Ideas Due
Wed 02/05	Tutorial	Embedded Computing
Mon 02/10	Tutorial	Embedded Computing (continued)		A1 Due
Wed 02/12	Tutorial	Machine Learning 101		A2 Assigned
Mon 02/17	Tutorial	Machine Learning 102
Wed 02/19	Discussion	Human / AI Interaction
Mon 02/24	Discussion	Smart Homes	Boovaraghavan et al. Mites -- Design and Deployment of a General-Purpose Sensing Infrastructure for Buildings
Wed 02/26	Discussion	Project Progress/Updates (signup)	Each group should sign up for a 5min slot for a presentation/discussion.
Fri 02/28		No Class ( Project Due)		A2 Due
Mon 03/03		No Class (Spring Break!)
Wed 03/05		No Class (Spring Break!)
Mon 03/10	Tutorial	3D modeling
Wed 03/12	Discussion	LLMs + Sensing		A3 Released
Mon 03/17	Discussion	Security	"Handling a trillion (unfixable) flaws on a billion devices - Rethinking network security for the Internet-of-Things."
Wed 03/19	Discussion	Privacy	Ask the Experts -- What Should Be on an IoT Privacy and Security Label?"
Mon 03/24	Discussion	Frugal Sensing		Guest Lecture by Prof. Justin Chan
Wed 03/26	Discussion	Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality		A3 Due. Guest Lecture by Vivian Shen
Mon 03/31	Discussion	Health Sensing	Challenges in Realizing Smartphone-based Health Sensing
Wed 04/02	Discussion	Indirect and Novel Sensing Approaches
Mon 04/07	Discussion	Privacy Aware Sensing	Patidar et al. VAX
Wed 04/09	Discussion	Assistive Technologies	From Tactile to NavTile -Opportunities and Challenges
Mon 04/14	Discussion	Ethics	TBA TBA
Wed 04/16	Discussion	What's the future?
Mon 04/21		Project Troubleshooting
Wed 04/23		Project Troubleshooting
Tue 04/29	Presentation	Final Presentations	The time is 5:30pm-8:30pm. Location is still TBD.

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