Assignment 1 – Hyperlocal Sensing: Start Where You Are
Due Sept 10 – 5% of your Grade
What environmental data can you gather (manually or otherwise) from your immediate surroundings? Choose a hyperlocal site, such as your apartment, a community garden near you, the building you live in, or the one-block radius around your home or school. This is an invitation to slow down, observe VERY closely, and attune yourself to the rhythms, materials, and ecologies of a place you may think you already know or have overlooked.
Possible things to observe:
- Tree beds: What kinds of trees are planted? Are there tags, metal grates, or signs of maintenance or neglect? What human or non human behavior can you infer?
- Plant life: What weeds or plants grow in sidewalk cracks? Are they native or invasive? Medicinal or edible? What do your neighbors grow?
- Non-human life: What animals or insects do you notice? Any recurring patterns or daily/seasonal rhythms? What are their movements?
- Infrastructure (e.g. sewer grates): What materials are used? Where does water flow or pool? What needs attention? What information do they reveal?
- Environmental conditions: Can you track temperature, light, humidity, or air quality in a single spot throughout the day? What can you learn from it?
How to manually collect data: you can sketch maps, draw an illustration of the space, count items, measure shadows, listen for patterns, describe smells, take pictures, record sounds, or otherwise use your body’s senses.
What kinds of digital or institutional data might actually intersect with this specific location (e.g., 311 reports, city tree maps, noise complaints, flood zones)?
Deliverables:
Submit a short reflection on the blog (300–500 words) that includes:
- Your chosen site (describe it in as much detail as you can)
- What you observed and how you observed it (methods, tools, time of day, sensory details)
- Reflections on what surprised you, what remained invisible, and how this changed your relationship to the place
- Your data: in whatever format you collected it (sketches, sound recordings, photos, video, sensor readings, or a simple data visualization) and any other documentation you have.
- Post this to the class site and categorize it as ‘hyperlocal‘
Objective: This assignment hopes to help you think about intimacy, situatedness, and observation as a form of environmental knowledge-making. Before building or designing with data, we need to learn to truly notice.
Assignment 2 – Data Potluck
Due Sept 17 – 5% of your Grade (pass/fail)
Bring a dataset to the table! For this assignment, please bring in and contribute a piece of interesting, unusual data, something you’ve either collected yourself (continuing from Assignment 1 or another observation), or found online that feels local, specific, and human-scaled. We’re calling it a Data Potluck because everyone brings something different, and we’ll look at what kinds of patterns, stories, or visualizations emerge when we combine our findings.
We’re especially interested in “smaller data” not massive climate databases or satellite archives, but data that is possibly more: granular (focused on a small area, time window, or topic), situated (embedded in a local context or collected through lived experience), tangible or sensory (like smell logs, plant species, light cycles, trash types, noise levels), personal or community-driven (hand-counted, sketched, recorded by individuals or small orgs).
Things to think about:
- A week of sidewalk temperature readings
- A map of neighborhood tree species
- Sound levels in your room at different times
- Trash types observed outside your building
- Open data sets from local civic dashboards or community science efforts
Deliverables:
- A brief description of the dataset (what it is, where it came from)
- A link or upload of the data itself (can be a CSV, spreadsheet, image, folder, scanned notebook, etc.)
- A short reflection (150–250 words) on:
- Why you chose it
- What feels valuable, strange, or compelling about it
- Any early ideas it sparked about how to explore/visualize it
- Post this to the class site and categorize it as ‘potluck‘
Some useful data sources:
- NYC Open Data
- Citibike public data
- iNaturalist (you can collect your own data)
- USGS EarthExplorer (for small-scale satellite sets)
- Data for Black Lives
- Public Lab
- Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI)
- Local 311 dashboard, bike rack maps, flood risk maps, etc.
Objective: This potluck helps us think about how data carries perspective, how it can be situated in place and body, and how we might design with attention to scale, voice, and care.
Assignment 3 – Ambient Readings
Due Sept 24 – 5% of your Grade
Now that we’ve explored manual sensing and observation, let’s start collecting our own environmental data using sensors. Building on the tools and examples we’ve demonstrated in class, gather data from your local environment using a sensor/sensing setup of your choice using your Arduino or microcontroller paired with a temperature, humidity, soil moisture, light sensor or other sensor that suits your specific needs. This could be as simple or advanced as your skills allow. The key is to collect local, situated data, and begin to think about what it means to sense the world through your own machines.
Deliverables:
- A spreadsheet or CSV file with the collected data (at least one variable, over time or across time)
- A short description of your setup (sensor used, where data was collected, frequency/timing)
- A brief reflection (200–300 words) that includes:
- What were you trying to sense?
- What worked, what didn’t?
- What surprised you or felt meaningful?
- Categorize this post as ‘ambient‘
NOTE – If you already have experience in physical computing or coding, push this a bit further by:
- Including a basic visualization (graph, chart, plot)
- Or adding a small output or data-driven sketch (visual, sonic, or physical)
Objective: This assignment wants you to experience translating the environment into data to pay close attention to how sensing technologies shape what we see, how we relate to place, and what remains unreadable. It also sets the stage for working with this data creatively in your midterm and final projects.
Assignment 4 – Midterm Project: Input/Output Systems with Environmental Data
Due Oct 15 – 25% of your Grade
Over the next couple of weeks (Sept 24-Oct 15), you’ll design and build a fully functioning input/output system that responds to a piece of environmental data. This data can be locally sensed using your own system or drawn from a remote API, as long as it is meaningful and actionable within the context of your project. Your goal is to create a small but complete system in which data becomes an event trigger: producing an output, such as a display, visualization, physical response, or interactive element. This is a systems-thinking challenge: you’ll connect sensing, logic, and expressive output into a functional cycle. You may keep a running blog entry categorized as midterm
Your system should include:
- An input: environmental data (either live or recorded, local or remote)
- A triggering logic: when something happens in the data, the system responds
- An output: physical, visual, sonic, or interactive action that makes the data legible, playful, or critical
Timeline & Deliverables/Weekly Milestones:
- Share your concept with the class
- Describe the environmental data you’re interested in (local sensor or external API)
- Explain what it might do (output concept) and why you chose it
- Bring a sketch, flowchart, or rough plan and tell us what you need to make it happen!
- Bring a working prototype, even if partial or buggy
- Be prepared to describe what’s working and what still needs to be figured out
- Ask for specific feedback on key areas (e.g., sensor accuracy, response timing, form)
- Come to class with your full system working (or as close as possible)
- We will run the class as a studio-style critique
- Show the system in action and discuss:
- What worked
- What didn’t
- What you learned from the process
- What you would do differently next time
Objective: This project should bring together everything we’ve been working on so far: observation, sensing, interpretation, and response. Whether your system is poetic or practical, speculative or functional, it should reflect your intentions and your hands-on engagement with environmental conditions, data as material, and technology as a tool for re-seeing the world.
Assignment 5 – Build Your Own API
Due Oct 29 – 5% of your Grade
Now that we’ve explored in class how data is structured, formatted, and accessed through APIs, it’s your turn to create and share your own dataset as an API. The goal of this assignment is to practice thinking like a data provider:
- How is your data structured?
- What’s the logic behind the formatting?
- How might someone else query or use it?
You don’t need to build a backend from scratch, we’re keeping it lightweight and flexible. Your API can be a well-formatted JSON or CSV file, hosted in a way that’s accessible (via Drive, GitHub, Glitch, or another simple, free and accessible platform), and structured clearly enough that your classmates could use it in a basic project.
You should work towards the following:
- A self-created dataset that you’ve structured for others to access
- A description of the dataset:
- What it is
- How it was collected or generated
- Why you chose it
- The dataset itself, formatted as JSON, CSV or other
- A basic “API-like” access point:
- e.g., a raw link to the file hosted on GitHub or Glitch or another simple and free platform
- optional: a simple interface or viewer (e.g., GitHub page)
Optional (for those with more coding experience):
- Add parameters
- Serve the data using a lightweight backend (Node.js, Flask, etc.)
- Visualize your dataset live alongside the source
Deliverables:
- A link to your dataset (hosted or downloadable/downloaded)
- A short write-up (150–300 words) explaining:
- The structure and purpose of your dataset
- How someone else might use or remix it
- Any challenges you ran into while structuring or publishing it
- Categorize your post as ‘myAPI’
Objective: This assignment is meant to shift your perspective from data user to data creator/owner/maintainer. It’s a chance to consider how structure shapes access and interpretation, and how we might build open, creative, accessible and legible systems for others to explore.
Assignment 6 – Final Project – Environmental Media Systems
Project Due Dec 10 – 30% of your Grade
For your final project, you’ll design and build a complete, fabricated, working environmental media system: one that gathers data (locally or remotely), responds to it meaningfully through output, and is carefully considered in its physical form and user experience. This is your opportunity to bring together everything we’ve explored: sensing, networked infrastructure, systems design, and environmental storytelling.
The final deliverables will be presented in a public showcase, and should include both the interactive system and any supporting materials for exhibition (title, short description, simple visual/graphic or signage, and documentation).
Your system should include:
- An input: locally collected sensor data or remote API data
- A system loci: for interpreting and/or responding to that data
- An output: visual, sonic, physical, or otherwise tangible/display-based response
- A form: designed and fabricated enclosure, display or structure
- Exhibition-ready presentation materials
Timeline & Deliverables/Weekly Milestones:
- Find a site and identify the network infrastructure that’s in place. Draw it (pencil and paper).
- Where is power?
- how would data be communicated?
- Share your final project concept
- Include data source, sensing system or API, intended output, and initial idea for form/display
- Make sure this includes a diagram of the interaction of a user/visitor with the system
- Post this to the class site with the category “final project” subsequent weekly updates should be made to this same post
- In-class we will conduct virtual site visits + workshop ideas
- A Bill of Materials (BOM) for your project including all sensors, components, enclosures, and tools you’ll need
- For next week, work on physical prototyping and infrastructure testing (power, network, mounting, etc.)
- In-class: guest crit / feedback session
- Share final project progress
- Refine your technical system and begin building final output; plan your exhibition format (signage, space setup, visitor interaction)
Dec 10: Final Project Presentation
- In-class: peer review and in-progress crit
- Finish fabrication, test full system, polish exhibition materials
Dec 13: Showcase (3-6pm @ the Navy Yard)
- Public exhibition of your projects in the Brooklyn Navy Yard
- Be prepared to demo your system and speak about it
- Submit final documentation (photos, short video, diagram, and a brief written summary)
Final Deliverables:
- A working system with functioning input/output loop
- Fabricated enclosure design that supports and communicates your concept
- Documentation (photos, diagrams, short video)
- Exhibition materials (title, 1–2 sentence description, credits)
- Documentation: source code or circuit diagrams in a shared class repo
Objective: This is your chance to create something that listens and speaks: a device, artifact, or installation that responds to the world and communicates to others. Whether your final project is poetic, critical, informative, functional, or speculative, it should embody the thoughtful relationship between technology, place, and environmental perception that you have been exploring throughout the semester.