IDEA110 Vectors to Volumes: The Fundamentals of Digital Fabrication

This project-based course will cover the fundamentals of digital fabrication in a hands-on introduction to software-driven object making. The central concern will be process rather than concept, with a firm focus on how instead of why, as well as best safety practices. Instruction will be given in four areas sequentially, each building on the last: Vector Design & Execution, 3D Modeling & Printing, CNC Wood Routing, and CNC Metal Milling. Machine setup and best practices will be taught alongside foundational knowledge of applications such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Vectric VCarve, Autodesk Fusion360, and Ultimaker Cura. Throughout the course, there will be a consistent emphasis on fabrication methods and finishing techniques.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-IDEA, NSM-IDEA
Prereq: None

IDEA111Z Origami Mechanisms: The Science and Math of Folding

Explore the cutting edge of origami sciences! Origami as a research field is the science of folding materials - not just paper - and has applications in material sciences, space exploration, the biomedical field, protein folding, and many more! Anytime a material has to be transported in a closed state, transported, and then deployed, origami studies have a relevance. The course will involve folding, lectures, videos, guest video presenters, and time using the equipment of the IDEAS Lab to produce work. There will be one minor and one major project due that will use techniques learned during these class sessions. Course is 40 hours over two weeks (20 hrs/wk or 4 hours per day 5 days/week)
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Prereq: None

IDEA116 Introduction to Programming and Machine Knitting

Knitting is a fabrication technique with a long history, producing items from everyday garments to e-textiles. Since the invention of the first knitting machine in 1589, knitting technology has evolved significantly, leading to the sophisticated computerized knitting machines we use today. This course serves as an introduction to programming, computer science, and machine knitting, especially for students interested in textile design and making. Students will learn imperative programming using a high-level programming language, covering topics such as data types, control structures, functions, and objects. We will also cover how to program and operate a knitting machine. No prior knowledge in programming or knitting is required. This course provides an equivalent introduction to programming to COMP 112/113/114/115 and will satisfy any requirements or prerequisites that those courses satisfy.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA, NSM-MATH
Identical With: COMP116
Prereq: None

IDEA120 Ecological Design I: Being at Home in the World

Being at Home in the World is an introduction to the skills and thinking involved in the ecologically responsible creation of objects. This course is intended to provide a foundational understanding of the language of design, sources of materials, and energy systems. The studio encourages students to develop a rigorous, iterative working method to deeply analyze the nature of land and resources, explore options, and test ideas. This process of making is complemented and supported by an introduction to the history and theory of design, training with techniques and equipment, and active practice in keeping a sketchbook. Early exercises and projects in the course build familiarity and confidence with analytical drawing, making, and modeling techniques, which build toward the creation of a novel piece of design work presented at the final review.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST220, ENVS232
Prereq: None

IDEA154 Working with MATLAB

The content of this course focuses on learning the basics of utilizing MATLAB to program and solve basic problems. We will operate on the assumption that students have no prior experience with programming. The goals of the course will be to develop algorithmic thinking, problem solving, and quantitative skills within the context of MATLAB. The course will cover essential mechanics of programming, many of which are common to all programming languages, as well as some selected advanced topics. With the expectation that students with a broad background with various motivating factors lead them to enroll in the course, students will be invited to apply the skills learned in the course to completing the culminating final project related to their specific interests.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: NSM-QAC, SBS-QAC
Identical With: QAC154, CIS154
Prereq: None

IDEA160 Fundamentals of Design I

In this introductory product design course, students will experience basic design processes such as problem identification and possible resolutions; the use of design development and communication skills via design observation and research; iterative process and prototyping; and representation and presentation in two and three-dimensional forms. Students will explore how design can play a role in our community and how it can impact our society. Students will work both individually and collaboratively in a studio environment. Field trips to New York City fabricators, galleries, and workshops may be expected as part of this course.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST270
Prereq: None

IDEA170 Introduction to Mechanical Design and Engineering

This course will provide a hands-on introduction to design and engineering. Students will engage in individual and team projects in a studio environment where we seek to develop a shared practice and understanding of the engineering design process. We will study biological organisms to find inspiration for design of hoppers, swimmers, and climbers. Students will build skills using computer-aided design (CAD) software and using tools for fabrication and prototyping including laser cutting and 3D printing. We will also hone skills in identifying which scientific and engineering principles need to be understood to achieve design goals.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Identical With: CIS170, PHYS205
Prereq: None

IDEA170F Introduction to Mechanical Design and Engineering (FYS)

This course will provide a hands-on introduction to design and engineering. Students will engage in individual and team projects in a studio environment where we seek to develop a shared practice and understanding of the engineering design process. We will study biological organisms to find inspiration for design of hoppers, swimmers, and climbers. Students will build skills using computer-aided design (CAD) software and using tools for fabrication and prototyping including laser cutting and 3D printing. We will also hone skills in identifying which scientific and engineering principles need to be understood to achieve design goals.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Prereq: None

IDEA170Z Introduction to Design and Engineering

This course will provide a hands-on introduction to design and engineering. Students will engage in individual and team projects in a studio environment where we seek to develop a shared practice and understanding of the engineering design process. We will study biological organisms to find inspiration for design of hoppers, swimmers, and climbers. Students will build skills using computer-aided design (CAD) software and using tools for fabrication and prototyping including laser cutting and 3D printing. We will also hone skills in identifying which scientific and engineering principles need to be understood to achieve design goals.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Identical With: CIS170Z, PHYS170Z
Prereq: None

IDEA173 Introduction to Sensors, Measurement, and Data Analysis

This course is an engineering fundamentals course supporting the Integrated Design, Engineering, and Applied Science (IDEAS) minor. It will involve a sequence of hands-on projects that introduce students to basic measurement devices and data analysis techniques using inexpensive modern sensors, a microprocessing platform (Arduino), and a computational software package (Matlab). The course will provide foundational knowledge of available resources and techniques that allow students to more confidently implement measurement systems in subsequent courses of the IDEAS minor and better understand experimental devices used in scientific research activities.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Identical With: CIS173
Prereq: None

IDEA175 Introduction to Electrical Design & Engineering

Students will learn about engineering mechanics, electronic control systems, and physical actuators (e.g., for movement) using a microprocessor platform, sensors and motors. The final project will require a student team to ideate, design, analyze, and optimize a mechatronic system. This course will allow students to better understand components, methods, and challenges in mechatronics systems commonly found in automation and robotics.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Identical With: CIS175, PHYS206
Prereq: None

IDEA180 Design Studies

This course examines the human dimensions of engineering and design by looking at the ways artifacts are designed, produced, circulated, and used in context. Rather than a comprehensive survey of movements or paradigms in the history of design, this course employs a thematic approach to understanding the ways objects can articulate and reflect social and cultural concerns. Through a series of readings, projects, lectures, and seminars, we will study the surprising ways everyday objects influence and articulate our identities, desires, biases, and experiences.



This course is intended to support students in developing a critical toolkit for use as designers, users, consumers, and citizens. Throughout the term we will seek to challenge our assumptions about the politics of design and interrogate the ways its products mediate and are changed through human activity. We will write about and visualize these relationships, thinking critically how objects are made, what makes them relevant, and whether things have the power to change our economic, environmental, and social realities.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-IDEA
Prereq: None

IDEA185 Creative Coding

This course provides a practice-driven introduction to design and expression with code. Students will learn elemental procedural programming skills and gain experience with software design and interactive art by developing a portfolio of digital projects of increasing complexity and scale. It is designed to establish fundamental cross-disciplinary intuition and knowledge for future use in the CoDES program as well as to provide a vector of artistic fulfillment. The course uses Processing and the Java programming language to facilitate the creation of visual, interactive digital sketches.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CIS
Identical With: CIS185
Prereq: None

IDEA185Z Form and Code

This introductory survey explores practices in design and digital media through a sequence of design exercises, workshops, and hands-on projects. Advancing towards an independent final project, participants will hone their skills as makers and thinkers while developing a portfolio of original work for both print and web. While primarily concerned with visual experimentation and expression, this course exposes students to critical topics in media and design through readings, seminars, and student presentations. Techniques surveyed in this course include: digital graphics, creative coding, and digital fabrication (if taught in person).



Students will require access to a personal computer and Adobe Creative Cloud. If the course runs remotely, students are responsible for locating these resources individually.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Identical With: CIS185Z
Prereq: None

IDEA186 Text & Visual Imagination: Introduction to Eco Design for Performance

Eco-scenography is an introduction to design for performance. In this course, students will learn the core principles of design for performance while exploring sustainability and environmental practices with an emphasis on understanding of materials, such as production cycle and manufacturing process, as well as integrating environmental justice paradigms by analyzing specific case studies. Through three specific project-based assignments--1. object design, 2. garment design, and 3. environmental design--students will train their visual imagination, as well as develop an aesthetic literacy and knowledge of performance design concepts and practice within eco-sustainable practices.



This course counts towards the Theater Arts category for the THEA major.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-THEA
Identical With: THEA185
Prereq: None

IDEA187 From Shirtwaists to Hoodies: Fashion and Public Life

Pictured prevalently and worn close to the body, fashion is a powerful and personal means of expression and documenting public life. With a focus on the United States, this course presents a loose chronology of fashion, from the late nineteenth century to today, through a selection of themes that will allow students to consider it in terms of its social, political, economic and aesthetic impact. Through the interplay of image, clothing, and text, each week, we will explore the fashion industry from various perspectives, examining the key role makers and consumers play in constructing fashion both historically and today. Guest speakers and museum visits will enhance these perspectives. Specifically, we will question the ways we deploy dress and style to document public life, from the personal to the political, and how it informs our material and visual relationships with the world. In addition to lectures and readings discussion, class time will be allotted to students' fashion documentation projects. Fashion theory will also be introduced to ground our explorations of fashion, variously as a pictured and cultural entity, embodied practice, site of technological innovation, and tool for shaping one's identity.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-CSPL
Identical With: CSPL187, FGSS187, SOC265
Prereq: None

IDEA190 Digital Foundations

This course introduces the foundations of digital art through contemporary artistic practice. Students will research the history of digital art and examine relationships of digital media and contemporary art. The class has a theoretical focus on machine use within the process of art making while building foundational digital skills. Projects will focus on four key areas including: Digital Imaging, 3D Modeling and Virtual Design, Time Based Media, and Digital Fabrication. Building on these four areas the course will culminate in an individualized research based final project and presentation. Through experimentation, critical analysis, critique and peer review; students will generate a unique portfolio of digital art works.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST190
Prereq: None

IDEA190Z Digital Foundations

This introduction to the digital studio engages software and electronic media as an expanded field of creative production in contemporary art and design. Through a sequence of workshops, exercises, and hands-on digital projects, students will develop their critical and creative toolkits and learn to conceive, refine, and present original work. Open to all skill levels, this course prioritizes sustained and rigorous engagement with digital practice as well as conceptual and formal problem-solving.



Workshops in image manipulation, compositing, motion graphics, and visual communication will be led synchronously online by the instructor. This will be complemented with weekly online studio sessions, discussions, screenings, and reviews. Students will be provided access to all course materials using Google Drive and other digital platforms. Access to Adobe Creative Cloud software will be provided by Wesleyan, but individual licensing is also encouraged. Course assistants will offer peer mentoring and technical support in person through the DDS and online through Zoom.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST190Z
Prereq: None

IDEA200 Integrative Learning Project 1: Crafting Your Digital Identity

Wondering about how you will explain your Wesleyan experience to someone who doesn't get what it is like to attend an eclectic liberal arts institution? Worried about how your experiences at Wesleyan will translate to your post-graduate life? Want to practice talking about yourself so you are ready to enter the job market or apply for graduate school? This course is for you! Throughout the semester, you will practice writing about yourself and will ultimately place what you write in WordPress, the world's most popular platform for website design. Along the way, you will learn about user experience (UX) design principles and research methodologies, so that the website you create draws in your audience and makes them want to learn more about you. Throughout the semester, we will meet once a week to do all of these things in a relaxed, collaborative environment. Join us and bring along some friends!
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: None
Identical With: WRCT200, RL&L250, AFAM250, CSPL200
Prereq: None

IDEA203 The Secrets of Ancient Bones: Discovering Ancient DNA and Archaeology

New analyses of ancient DNA preserved for millennia in bones and soils have revolutionized the field of archaeology. Suddenly, archaeologists have gained new insight into human origins, past population migrations, ancient diseases, plant and animal domestication, and even the factors that contributed to the extinctions of megafauna such as woolly mammoths. Recent genetic case studies will provide a lens for learning about the archaeology of diverse world regions and time periods, from Oceania to Mesoamerica and from the Paleolithic through recent history. Topics will include: human evolution and genetic relationships between humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans; the peopling of the globe; extinction and de-extinction; domestication and the origins of agriculture; paleodiseases and paleodiets; and ethics in genetic research.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ARCP
Identical With: ARCP203, ENVS203, ANTH212, STS203
Prereq: None

IDEA204 Introduction to Archaeology

What can fragments of pottery, stones, and bones reveal about the lives of people who lived thousands or even millions of years ago? What does the archaeological record reveal about human evolution, past human diets and health, ancient socioeconomic systems, and the emergence of early cities? And how can we preserve archaeological sites and artifacts for future generations? This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of archaeology. We will discuss key methods and principles that archaeologists use to study the human past while covering a survey of world prehistory from the earliest stone tools to the archaeology of contemporary material culture. Students will have the opportunity to examine real archaeological artifacts -- including artifacts excavated from historic Middletown -- and will be encouraged to think critically about the ways that archaeology informs our understanding of both the past and the present.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ARCP
Identical With: ARCP204, ANTH214, ENVS207
Prereq: None

IDEA205 The Technological Primate: Archaeological Approaches to Ancient Technology

Humans are reliant on technology, in one form or another, for our survival. This obligate use of technology has been a characteristic of our evolutionary history for over 2.5 million years. This course will explore how technology became central to the human way of life. We will discuss both how and why our use of technology has changed through time. This includes considerations of the adaptive roles that technology plays in our evolution, how technology is shared between individuals and cultures, and the role of technology beyond the purely utilitarian. Students will learn about the ways archaeologists analyze and think about ancient technologies. This includes a wide variety of material types, including stone, ceramic, botanicals, bone, metal, and more. In this course students will have an opportunity to handle both actual archaeological materials and replicas.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ARCP
Identical With: ARCP210, STS211, ANTH210
Prereq: None

IDEA206 Experimental Archaeology: Material Science and Past Behaviors

The field of archaeology requires practical ways to move beyond modern observations of materials to the invisible behaviors that produced them in the past. Experimental archaeology generates analogical models for archaeological processes by manipulating modern materials under controlled conditions. The principles established during experiments are applied to archaeological data to reconstruct the behaviors that produced the material record. This course will consider experimental design and practice to address issues relevant at different stages of the archaeological process. This is inclusive of replication of past technologies, experimenting with natural and cultural formation processes, and addressing biases inherent in the methods used by archaeologists. The course includes hands on experimental labs with different types of material culture and critical discussions of published experiments. Students will also be tasked with designing, executing, and reporting on an archaeological experiment.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-ARCP
Identical With: ARCP360, ANTH360, STS363
Prereq: None

IDEA208 Technologies of Time

Tracking the rhythms, cycles, and ruptures of collective life is essential for studies of sociocultural and environmental dynamics. Yet such studies are mostly undertaken with the unquestioned assumption that Western apparatuses of time reckoning and historical periodization can be applied as universal and stable frames of reference for all kinds of phenomena. Temporal units of years, months, days, minutes are used, rendering insensible relations that do not align with such metrics. These simplifying moves limit our capacity to sense and understand continuity and change; they place many lives and landscapes at risk. This course draws from the social and ecological sciences, humanities, and arts to reimagine such simplifications. Through readings, creative exercises, and field trips, students are invited to notice, record, and engage with multiple temporalities of more-than-human worlds. For final projects, students will research and design speculative timekeeping devices or time machines for worlds otherwise.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-SISP
Identical With: STS208
Prereq: None

IDEA209 Educational Gaming Lab: Project-Based, Game-Based Pedagogy Approaches

In the past two decades, crowdfunding and renewed interest in games--board games, role-playing games, digital games, and instructional games--have created an increased and diverse gaming production, which has become the subject of several studies, articles, and projects related to all areas of education, from hard sciences to language learning and the arts. In an effort to explore how a game-informed pedagogy can work in various types of courses and to highlight analog and/or digital gaming approaches that have worked inside and outside the language classroom, this course will explore the basics of game-based learning (GBL) and discuss how games of all kinds can inform pedagogical discussions and the creation of learning materials. Educational Gaming Lab is designed as a project-based gaming laboratory that will focus on why and how analog games can be effective tools for pedagogy. Examples will include board games, tabletop role-playing games, escape games, and puzzles. Participants will discuss the application of gaming principles to various subjects and types of classrooms; then, they will engage in a final project in which they will either adapt existing games for specific learning outcomes or create brand new educational games. The course will be conducted in English and games will be created in English.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-EDST
Identical With: EDST210
Prereq: None

IDEA210 How Things Fail: Mechanics and Materials

This lab/lecture engineering course is a foundational cornerstone of structural analysis and mechanical design. It will provide students with a theoretical and practical understanding of static equilibrium, force systems, material response to loading, and analysis of failure modes for each of the fundamental types of stress and strain (axial, flexural, and torsional). These skills are vital for students from a range of disciplines, including mechanical engineering and architecture. The final project will entail design, implementation, and testing of an optimized model of a structure.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Identical With: CIS210, PHYS210
Prereq: IDEA170 AND (PHYS111 OR PHYS113)

IDEA211 Materials and Design Concepts for Structures

This course explores innovations in materials and structural forms at the intersection of design, performance, and engineering. Students will connect the theory of structures with properties of materials to understand fundamental design principles in vaults, buildings, and bridges. Analyses of notable structures will illustrate the evolution of forms in response to natural forces and constraints of technology, economy, and time. Design exercises, discussion of readings, and laboratory experiments will introduce perspectives from ancient cultures to emerging techniques in contemporary works that are laser cut, 3-D printed, and robotically assembled. In course projects, students will pursue research in an area of interest and collaborate in teams to gain hands-on experience with building and testing scaled models of structures.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Prereq: None

IDEA212 Metal Manufacturing Through the Ages: The Science Behind Metal and Impact of Metal in Society

Metal manufacturing has been key to societal change ever since humans first started using it, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age to the Industrial Revolution to today. In this course, we will explore the science behind why metal is so important, from the molecular level on up. We will study heating and cooling of metals, learn how the structure of metals affects their material properties, and get hands-on experience shaping metal with a variety of processes. We will follow the lifecycle of metal from ore to raw material to finished parts, as well as how it gets recycled. Students will build engineering skills in reading phase diagrams, analyzing heat transfer setups, and understanding the material properties of a wide range of metals. Students will build machining skills both in shaping metal by hand and with modern metal shaping methods.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Prereq: IDEA170

IDEA213 Design for Scale: The Nuts and Bolts of Mass Manufacturing

This course builds on the design skills from IDEA170 to give students practice in building not just a prototype, but a repeatable and functional design. The increase in quantity between prototype and production forces us to prioritize reliability and repeatability in our designs, and adds design for assembly, design for manufacturing, and design for inspection considerations. With the increase in scale, communicating design intent precisely through engineering drawings becomes a critical skill. Students will explore these design principles through a semester-long hands-on project designing, manufacturing, and analyzing a multi-part mechanism (figurine, toy, tool, machine, etc) of their own design. Injection molding will be our primary manufacturing technique, with additional use of vacuum forming, 3D printing, waterjetting, and plastic shredding. In addition to the central project, there will be in-class activities and homework on analysis techniques for mass manufacturing and design best practices.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Prereq: IDEA170

IDEA215 Introduction to Sensors, Measurement, and Data Analysis

This course is an engineering fundamentals course supporting the Integrated Design, Engineering, Arts, and Society (IDEAS) minor. It will involve a sequence of hands-on projects that introduce students to basic measurement devices and data analysis techniques using sensors, a microprocessing platform, and computational software. The course will provide foundational knowledge of available resources and signal processing techniques that allow students to more confidently implement measurement systems in subsequent courses of the IDEAS minor and better understand experimental devices used in scientific research activities. Students will complete a final team project of their choice (with approval) exploring areas of interest in measurement, data analysis, machine learning or other avenues. Some previous programming experience is expected. Prior experience in IDEA175 or with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or other physical computing platforms are preferred, but not required.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-CIS
Prereq: None

IDEA221 A Thousand Years of Iteration: Design for an Uncertain Future

The climate emergency is a product of design. Centuries worth of aesthetic and industrial innovation have created extractive infrastructure, efficient machines, and disposable products that make it increasingly easy to consume energy and resources on a global scale. As new conversations about just transitions, a circular economy, and a Green New Deal have begun to proliferate among designers, the discipline's troubled relationship to notions of "progress" remains largely unquestioned.



This reading- and research-intensive studio asks students to examine this history of technology and to critically evaluate shifting theoretical perspectives on nature and human development as they relate to design. Topics will include the lifespan of buildings and products, relationships with and obligations to materials and resources, and strategies for de-growth in indigenous and vernacular design precedents. These will be studied through assigned readings and in-class discussion, a series of design exercises, and the production of a final project from materials immediately at hand in Middletown.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST221, ENVS227
Prereq: None

IDEA222 Fluid Mechanics

This course provides an introduction to the principles of fluid mechanics and a survey of the wide range of phenomena and applications in which fluids play a central role. Examples will often be drawn from engineering and environmental science with the goal of revealing the fundamental physics of fluid flow. The emphasis is on qualitative understanding of fluid mechanics, scaling using non-dimensional numbers, quantitative descriptions in simple geometries, and the ability to identify and use approximate models to describe complex real-world applications.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: None
Identical With: PHYS222
Prereq: None

IDEA228 The Evolution of Audio in Interactive Entertainment; Creating Music with Limiting Technology

In the creative world, introducing limitations demands incredible innovation from an artist. Nowhere has this been truer than in video game audio. An entire generation has grown to hear complex worlds in just a small combination of oscillators and noise generators, and the lengths composers and sound designers went to craft those worlds is nothing short of astounding. In this course we will examine and emulate compositions which used the iconic sound architectures present in home consoles, taking us all the way from the implementation of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony in "Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle" (1982), through David Wise's implementation of octave displacement in the NES classic "RC Pro-Am" (1988), the string of composers who all had to create homogeneous yet individualized soundtracks for the "Rockman" game series (starting in 1987), and landing in the nostalgic implementation of these architectures in the practically polar opposite games of SUDA 51: "Killer 7" (2005), "No More Heroes" (2007), and Toby Fox's "Undertale" (2015). Along the way we will cover sound design and emotional impact outside of chiptunes, one big example being the work of Akira Yamaoka in the "Silent Hill" (1999) series. This course will both serve as a survey of these games as well as contain practical projects, where you will be using tools to create work in a similar vein and where you will be presenting and dissecting the sound design of interactive entertainment which carries a particular meaning to you.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-DDC
Identical With: DDC228
Prereq: None

IDEA229 Creating Audio in Interactive Worlds

Video games have struggled with the issue of audio repetition since their inception. Human existence thrives on entropy: our experience in the world is not defined by easily repeatable sequences, but by interacting with spontaneous behaviors and stimuli. Nothing takes a player out of a virtual world faster than countless NPCs saying "I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee." Likewise, nothing destroys the ambience of a world faster than hearing the same combination of birds and running water over the course of hours. Thankfully, contemporary game design tools can make the process of emulating the natural world both possible and fairly intuitive. In this course we will examine the nature of what it means to create an organic-feeling virtual world and then employ the audio tools in the Unity engine, along with the adaptive sound design middleware FMOD, to craft organic sonic environments which will be both adaptive and varied. We will look at both historical implementations of ambience -- such as the Myst (1994) series -- as well as examine modern implementations of environmental audio. Special attention will also be paid to the theory and scholarship of audio in natural sonic environments outside of the realm of gaming, as these practices thrive when applied to virtual worlds.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-DDC
Identical With: DDC229
Prereq: None

IDEA230 Video Game Audio Design

In the creative world, introducing limitations demands incredible innovation from an artist. This course serves to develop a foundational approach to designing and composing audio for video games by exploring the historical practices and limitations in game audio, utilizing middleware pipelines to create audio in contemporary game engines, and developing a better understanding of the role sound designers play in a studio environment. We will examine and emulate compositions which employ the iconic sound architectures present in classic home consoles, taking us all the way from the implementation of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony in "Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle" (1982), through David Wise's implementation of octave displacement in the NES classic "RC Pro-Am" (1988), on to the string of composers who all had to create homogeneous yet individualized soundtracks for the "Rockman" game series (starting in 1987), and landing in the nostalgic implementation of these architectures in the practically polar opposite games of SUDA 51 ("Killer 7" and "No More Heroes") and Toby Fox's "Undertale" (2015).



The contemporary unit of this course will examine the nature of what it means to create an organic-feeling virtual world and then employ the audio tools in the Godot engine, along with the adaptive sound design middleware FMOD, to craft living sonic environments which are both dynamic and varied. The skills developed in this course include basic music theory as it applies to video games, studio recording techniques (sound, music, and voice-over), knowledge of implementing audio calls and flags, and a general appreciation of sound in games.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-DDC
Identical With: DDC230
Prereq: None

IDEA233 Studies in Computer-based Modelling and Digital Fabrication

This course operates at the intersection of design and production, introducing students to digital tools critical to contemporary architecture and design. Throughout the semester, students will develop a series of projects that fluidly transition between design, representation, and fabrication with an emphasis on understanding how conceptual design interfaces with material properties. The course will offer a platform for students to research, experiment, and, ultimately, leverage the potential of digital tools toward a wide array of fields and disciplines. Students will be expected to utilize the Digital Design Studio's resources, including 3D printers, laser cutter, and 4-Axis CNC mill, as well a selection of fabrication equipment housed in the school's metal and wood shops to represent, model, and realize a series of design projects.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST233
Prereq: None

IDEA234 Architecture I

This course is a synthesis of fundamentals of design principles and introduction to design vocabulary, process methodologies, and craft. Emphasis is placed on developing students' ability to examine the relationship between production (the process of creating things) and expression (the conveying of ideas and meaning) involved in the making of architecture. The intent of the course is to develop students' awareness and understanding of the built environment as a result of the investigations, observations, and inquiries generated in the studio.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST235
Prereq: None

IDEA235 Activism and Theories of Change

In this course we will explore strategies and theories of change that shape social justice movements, with particular reference to recent movements in the United States. We will discuss the benefits and risks of the many available strategies including direct action, grassroots mobilization, impact litigation, legislative campaigns, electoral campaigns, artistic protest, and public education. We will apply concepts and lessons from past movements to explore organized actions intended to protect communities and resist authoritarianism in our current climate. What strategic, ethical, or moral questions are raised by various types of protest and communications? What do history, research, and current events teach us about what causes social change? How do we measure whether various strategies and tactics work? The instructors will draw on their own experiences as activists for women's rights, queer rights, and social and economic justice. The course will be co-taught by Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Policy Leslie Gabel-Brett and guest instructor Beverly Tillery, former Executive Director of the Anti-Violence project in New York City, who will focus on the ways BIPOC and Queer BIPOC communities are reshaping the social justice landscape by addressing the safety of trans people, challenging the gender binary, and rethinking accountability and the carceral legal system. We will allow time to apply the course concepts to events occurring in real time during the semester. The instructors are deeply committed to maintaining a safe space for inquiry and learning where divergent opinions are welcome and respected. This course will be relevant to students interested in public policy, feminism, racial justice, gender and sexuality studies, and other social sciences, and will provide useful insight for current and future organizers and activists, lawyers, and public policy advocates.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ALLB
Identical With: CSPL235, FGSS236, AFAM235
Prereq: None

IDEA236 Fast & Furious

Fast and Furious is a class which explores the power of the multiple through the production of zines, posters, t-shirts, tote bags, pins and more. Beginning in the 1930s, the production of zines mainly in the sci-fi fan world became popular after the advent of the mimeograph--the first widely available duplicating machine. This way of making content was able to circumvent mainstream and institutional publishing models creating channels for more creatives to distribute their work. Today, there are even more technologies that can be used in the production of zeitgeist material. In this class, we will learn how to create with a Xerox machine, silkscreen, letterpress, polymer, and more. In each assignment we will contend with the power of quantity. What does it mean to make five of something? Ten? Fifty? One hundred? We will also experiment with format. How can a message be told through a wearable garment? How does the narrative change when it's a tote bag? And finally, we will explore the poetics of distribution. What are the artistic possibilities of a zine when it can be sent through the mail or left in a pile for the public?
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST236
Prereq: None

IDEA243 Introduction to Graphic Design

This course will open your mind to the world of graphic design, both past and present. You will learn how to analyze and critique design in addition to how to present your work and convey your ideas to others. You'll explore various tools available to a designer including hand skills and computer software. Computers will simply be a possible tool to help complete each project - this is not a software class.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST243
Prereq: None

IDEA246 Graphic Design: Website as Portfolio

Students will focus on the creation of an online portfolio of work as both an extension of their own practice and calling card for the world at large. Emphasis will be placed on the deployment of the site as a space for both interactive and graphic design and the development of writing about/documenting work and projects. Hard coding skills not necessary; focus will be on familiarization with user friendly sketching platforms, research organization systems, and out-of-the-box CMS for website development. Visiting artist talks will also be arranged.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST246
Prereq: None

IDEA247 American Architecture and Urbanism, 1770-1914

This course considers the development of architecture and urbanism in the United States from the late 18th through the early 20th century. Major themes include the relationship of American to European architectures; the varied symbolic functions of architecture in American political, social, and cultural history; and the emergence of American traditions in the design of landscapes and planning for modern cities, especially Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The course considers houses for different sites and social classes, government buildings, churches and synagogues, colleges, and commercial architecture of different kinds includes the origins of the skyscraper. Urban environments include cemeteries, public parks, streets, and civic centers. Discussion will be informed by recent historiography on race and the American built environment. Movements studied include neoclassicism, the Gothic and Romanesque revivals, the Chicago School, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the City Beautiful movement. Major figures studied include Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Latrobe, Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Furness, Henry Hobson Richardson, Louis Sullivan, the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Greene and Greene, Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, and McKim, Mead and White.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARHA246
Prereq: None

IDEA248 Frank Lloyd Wright: Myth and Fact

This course considers the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright in the context of his own life and development as an artist and in the context of the broader history of modern architecture, of which Wright's work was a part and to which it contributed. The seminar also considers the relationship of Wright's achievements to the social, economic, technical, and ideological history of the United States from the mid-19th through the mid-20th centuries. A major theme will be critical reading of Wright's own statements about his life and work in relation to other sources, later accounts, and his buildings and projects themselves. Both Wright's residential and public architecture will be considered in conjunction with his designs for landscapes and urbanism. Architectural drawings will also be examined as a medium in themselves, along with textual and physical evidence, as a means of generating maximal insight into Wright's built and unbuilt works.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Prereq: None

IDEA254 Architecture of the 20th Century

The course considers influential works in architecture, its theory and criticism, and ideas for urbanism, mostly in Europe and the United States, from about 1900 to the present. Early parts of the semester focus on the origin and development of the modern movement in Europe to 1940, with attention given to selected American developments before World War II. Later parts of the course deal with Western architecture from 1945 to the present, including later modernist, postmodernist, and deconstructivist work, urbanism and housing, computer-aided design from the 1990s, green buildings, and postwar architecture in Latin America and Japan and in postcolonial India and Africa. Major movements and architects considered include the Viennese Secession, the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, and Louis Kahn, among many others.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARHA254, ENVS254
Prereq: None

IDEA258 Contemporary World Architecture

This course is a study of architecture and urban design throughout the world from the 1990s to the present. American topics include public and private development in the "neoliberal" city in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and post-Katrina New Orleans; contemporary museum architecture; sprawl and New Urbanism; and affordable housing. Major American architects considered include Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Daniel Libeskind, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. In Europe, the focus is on contemporary public architecture in Berlin, London, Oslo, Hamburg, Paris, Valencia, Lisbon, Rome, and Athens, with attention to major works of Sir Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Santiago Calatrava, Rem Koolhaas, and Renzo Piano, among others. In China we will study state monuments of the Communist Party in Beijing and issues of preservation and urban development there and in Shanghai. In Japan the recent work of Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, and Shigeru Ban is a focus, as are selected projects by other architects in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka. Additional lectures will treat airport architecture in Asia, and sites in India, Jerusalem, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Guinea, South Africa, Nigeria, Rio di Janeiro, Chile, and Quito, Ecuador. The last quarter of the course focuses on green or sustainable architecture, including passive and active solar heating, photovoltaics, energy-efficient cooling and ventilation, timber and rammed-earth techniques, LEED certification, wind and geo-exchange energy, green skyscrapers, vertical farming, and zero-carbon cities.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARHA258
Prereq: None

IDEA261 Science Materials For a Malagasy Classroom

Students will design and produce a variety of educational science materials to be used in a fifth grade classroom in Madagascar. These items include a science logo, bookmarks, educational science games, posters, and a comic book with conservation themes for children. Students who are interested in design and natural history as a means through which to communicate science themes on wildlife endemism, evolution, and climate change would be appropriate for this course. All students will need to conduct independent research into science topics, distill down the salient features, and use that information to design elementary school materials. Working both individually and in teams, students will conceive, design, critique, and move into product production (MakerSpace). In addition, prototypes of the materials will be reviewed and rated by fifth graders in a Middletown elementary school for feedback.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-BIOL
Identical With: BIOL161, ENVS261
Prereq: None

IDEA267 Engineering Biology: Cells and Tissues

This course explores the intersection of biology, medicine, and engineering, where scientists are developing novel platforms to promote understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of human diseases. We cover modern techniques for manipulating biological systems, spanning single molecules to ensembles of cells. We will examine the trajectory of the field from studying cells in a plastic dish to the advent of organ-on-a-chip and organoid models and discuss how this transition from 2D to 3D biology has propelled increased understanding of both normal physiological homeostasis and also the pathophysiology of disease. Topics will include controlling behavior of cells through cell-matrix interactions, learning through building via synthetic biology, and advances in regenerative medicine. These topics will be explored through the thematic lenses of transport processes (supply of nutrients and removal of waste) and mechanoreciprocity (the sensing of and response to the physical properties of the cellular microenvironment). Lectures will review fundamental concepts in cell biology and physiology before delving into topical examples from current literature. Lectures and assessments will include opportunities to develop skill in thinking analytically and critically about using engineering tools to study fundamental questions in human disease, formulating original ideas and experiments, and communicating science through written and oral formats.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-BIOL
Identical With: BIOL267, BIOL567
Prereq: BIOL208 OR BIOL212 OR BIOL218 OR BIOL228 OR PHYS207

IDEA271 Designing With Living Systems: Soft + Hairy

In this part seminar, part studio course, students will go on field trips and read extensively to develop an understanding of mycelium and how it is explored in design. We will explore temporality in design with particular focus on how biodegradable materials such as mycelium can form our experience of an object. We will study how mycelium can be utilized as a living material to form a built ecology. In particular, we will study how to design for impermanence -- sometimes using waste materials -- and develop an understanding for material recovery. Students will work both individually and collaboratively in a studio environment. Field trips to New York City museums, fabricators, and galleries, as well as around CT may be expected as part of this course.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST271, ENVS271
Prereq: ARST131 OR IDEA110 OR IDEA180

IDEA275 Introduction to Archaeological Science: Natural Science Approaches to the Human Past

While archaeology is considered by many to be a social science, natural science approaches are increasingly utilized by archaeologists to explore past environments and behaviors. Archaeological science is defined as the application of scientific techniques from biology, chemistry, geology, and other natural sciences to archaeological materials. This course will survey the different scientific techniques employed by archaeologists and highlight their utility for exploring the human past through archaeological case studies. Students will consider how the integration of natural and social science approaches produces a more complete understanding of the archaeological record. This includes the reconstruction of climates, landscapes, diets, migrations, population interactions, production behaviors, chronologies, and more. Students will learn the basics of the archaeological applications of ancient DNA, stable isotopes, sedimentology, geochemistry, chronometric dating, 3D scanning, morphometrics, botany, zoology, and other scientific methods.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-ARCP
Identical With: ARCP275, ANTH275, STS275
Prereq: None

IDEA283 Drones and Change

Civilian use of unoccupied aerial vehicles or drones to capture data and measure change can enhance our understanding of the natural and built environments. While drones are increasingly available for entry-level to professional level adoption, there remains value in understanding how the infrastructure for their development and deployment have evolved and what is required to ensure their continued safe and ethical utility of these devices. In this class, we will explore the legal and infrastructure elements of drone development and deployment for civilian utility of drones, while working on data collection, analysis, and interpretation that will allow students to better appreciate the value and utility of drones. Over the course of the semester, students will work on understanding and building drones, collecting data with small drones, examining the commercial versus open-source platforms for drones, and preparing to take the Federal Aviation Authority Part 107 license to allow them to fly drones safely.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-EES
Identical With: E&ES283, ENVS269
Prereq: E&ES101 OR E&ES115 OR E&ES155 OR E&ES197

IDEA285 Digital Projects Lab

This intermediate course in design engages form and process as vital lineaments in digital images, systems, and objects today. Through a series of short, hands-on, thematic projects, students will move past the basics of digital technique and challenge themselves to articulate how and why things appear as they do. Rather than focus on specific tools or software, assignments will straddle creative platforms and media, incorporating methods such as live signal processing, data moshing, remixing, and interaction design. Early assignments will address narrow thematic concerns while a long-term final project driven by students' own directives will be developed and executed in the second half of term.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CIS
Identical With: CIS285
Prereq: None

IDEA286 Introduction to Time-Based Media

This introductory course offers a comprehensive exploration of time-based media in the expanded field, providing a foundational skillset for students interested in fine arts and media practices, yet open to all majors eager to develop their creative and critical voice. A core focus of the course is the act of making, which will be coupled with an investigation into how video can transform our relationship with ourselves, others, and the material world. Through screenings of historical and contemporary video art, we'll investigate theoretical frameworks, asking critical questions such as: What sorts of videos do we consider "art," and how might we use video as a tool for empathy, accountability, and aesthetic inquiry?



Students will build essential practical skills through regular technical exercises and hands-on projects, including camera operation, sound recording and design, lighting techniques, and video and sound editing, utilizing industry-standard software and various capture devices. Each assignment will be contextualized through group discussions and readings, investigating established video art traditions as well as the medium's role in vernacular applications like live-streaming, and social media. By the end of the course, students will gain both technical facility and a sharp critical eye for time-based art and culture.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST286, DDC286
Prereq: None

IDEA287 Video Basics

This introductory course is for students of all majors eager to think critically and creatively about their relationship to video. How many videos do you have on your phone? How does the intimate, often humorous content we create relate to public space and artistic expression? Together, we'll explore the rich tradition of video art, which began in the mid-20th century when new technology was suddenly placed in the hands of everyday people. Artists quickly adopted, subverted, and transformed this specialized equipment beyond its initial commercial intent. Through hands-on projects, you'll learn to use affordable, widely available tools like CapCut and DaVinci Resolve to move beyond commercial aesthetics and create personal works of art. You will also be introduced to the specialized video equipment available on campus, focusing on the fundamental principles that can be applied to any camera you pick up. No prior experience is required: just a willingness to challenge and experiment with the videos you create every day.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST287, DDC208, ARST287
Prereq: None

IDEA289 Displaying Clothes: Fashion in the Museum 

What are clothes doing in the museum and why do they attract so much public attention? This course explores fashion exhibitions in history and the practice of fashion curation today, a key component of critical cultural analysis. Part curatorial workshop, part seminar, in this class students consider issues that influence professional curatorial practices through readings, discussions, and site visits. Topics include the origins of museums, museum architecture, the ethics and cultural impact of collecting and display practices, the role of dress and textile objects in art, history, and science museums, visitor experience research, and the challenges facing museums in the twenty-first century. As a group the students will work on an exhibition project, developing its organization and design, object selection and research, and accompanying texts and label writing.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-CSPL
Identical With: CSPL289, FGSS284, SOC279
Prereq: None

IDEA291 East Asian Archaeology

This course will introduce students to remarkable archaeological discoveries from East Asia, focusing on the archaeology of ancient China, but also including finds from Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. Beginning with "Peking Man" and Asia's earliest hominin inhabitants, we will explore the lives of Paleolithic hunter gatherers, the origins of domestic rice and pigs, the emergence of early villages and cities, the origins of writing, ancient ritual systems, long-distance interactions through land and maritime Silk Roads, and the archaeology of Chinese diaspora populations living in the 19th-century United States. We will also consider the current state of archaeological research in East Asia, focusing on site preservation, cultural heritage management, and the political roles of archaeology.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-ARCP
Identical With: ARCP291, ANTH291, CEAS291, ENVS291
Prereq: None

IDEA292 Interdisciplinary Project Lab

Interdisciplinary Project Lab fosters a holistic approach to engineering and design. Inviting students to reconcile vision with precision, hands-on coursework will involve a broad range of fabrication techniques, integration of systems, prototyping, and iterative design methods, culminating in a final project. The theme of this semester will be designing with light. The first half of the semester will focus on developing facility in both modeling and prototyping through digital and analog fabrication practices through short, intensive design and engineering projects. Students will expand their knowledge of materials and fabrication, develop skills for effective communication through visualizations and physical objects, and evaluate the efficacy of their designs. The second half of the semester will focus on an open-ended design project within the scope of the course theme, developed individually or in groups, planned in consultation with the instructor, and developed with feedback from all-lab reviews and individual desk crits. Complementing each of the lab projects, presentations and workshops will introduce the conceptual underpinnings of the course and develop requisite technical skills. IDEA292: Interdisciplinary Project Lab is a required course for all IDEAS linked major tracks in the College of Design & Engineering Studies. It may also be counted towards the IDEAS minor as an elective in most minor concentrations (see https://www.wesleyan.edu/codes/ for more information).
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Prereq: IDEA170 OR ARST190 OR IDEA285 OR IDEA175 OR ARST235

IDEA300 Integrative Learning Project 2: Website Incubator

Have you developed knowledge or expertise about a topic through an internship, engagement in a student organization, time studying abroad, or through some other experience that you would now like to share with the world? This is the class for you! Throughout out the semester, you will work to translate your experience into a website. I will help you do this by asking you to think about the content you would like to share, the audience with whom you would like to share it, and the goal you have for that audience. Ultimately, you will share your experience through WordPress, the world's most popular platform for website design. Along the way, you will learn about user experience (UX) design principles and research methodologies, so that the website you create draws in your audience and makes them want to learn more about your chosen topic. Throughout the semester, we will meet once a week to do all of these things in a relaxed, collaborative environment. Join us and bring along some friends!
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 0.50
Gen Ed Area: None
Identical With: WRCT300, RL&L350, AFAM320, CSPL300
Prereq: None

IDEA301 Technologies of Time

Tracking the rhythms, cycles, and ruptures of collective life is essential for studies of sociocultural and environmental dynamics. Yet such studies are mostly undertaken with the unquestioned assumption that Western apparatuses of time reckoning and historical periodization can be applied as universal and stable frames of reference for all kinds of phenomena. Temporal units of years, months, days, minutes are used, rendering insensible relations that do not align with such metrics. These simplifying moves limit our capacity to sense and understand continuity and change; they place many lives and landscapes at risk.



This course draws from the social and ecological sciences, humanities, and arts to reimagine such simplifications. Through readings, creative exercises, and field trips, students are invited to notice, record, and engage with multiple temporalities of more-than-human worlds. For final projects, students will research and design speculative timekeeping devices or time machines for worlds otherwise.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-SISP
Identical With: SISP208
Prereq: None

IDEA305 Lighting Design for the Theater

This course will introduce students to the history, basic principles, and practical application of lighting design through lecture, discussion, demonstration, and practical application. Students will develop a deeper understanding of the methodology and applications of light in storytelling, which will help them communicate with collaborators. Students will have the opportunity to develop skills in computer drafting, lighting console programming, and script analysis for design. This course counts towards the Theater Arts category for the THEA major as a design course and towards the concentration category for the IDEAS Performance Design minor.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-THEA
Identical With: THEA305, DDC305
Prereq: THEA105 OR DANC105

IDEA308 Comparative Urban Policy

Cities are home to more than half of the world's population, generate more than 80% of world GDP, and are responsible for 75% of global CO2 emissions. Once viewed as minor political players with parochial concerns, they are now--individually and collectively--major players on the global stage. This course will examine how cities are coping with the major policy issues governing our lives--from waste management and public safety to energy and housing policy. We will be examining how policies differ between big cities and small cities, what cities in the global north are learning from the cities in the global south, and how cities are bypassing toxic partisan politics in their nations' capitals to form global networks promoting positive change. The class will involve local field trips and participant observation to see how some of these urban issues are playing out in the city of Middletown.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-GOVT
Identical With: GOVT308, CEAS308, ENVS308
Prereq: None

IDEA311 Media and Environment: In/Sensible Worlds

In this seminar, we will examine the relationship between media technologies, sensory apparatuses, and changing environments. How do various kinds of media shape perceptions and interactions with our surroundings, multispecies ecologies, and planet Earth? How might we study the environment AS media? These seemingly simple questions matter because, like never before, media and environment co-produce who/what becomes sensible or insensible--and, ultimately, available or not available for life. This seminar will include readings from the fields of Critical Media and Communication Studies, Feminist/Postcolonial Science, and Technology Studies, Environmental/Digital Arts, and Humanities. Importantly, we will examine a range of creative media projects that explore ecology, environment, and earthly survival: films, games, sensors, and web projects.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-SISP
Identical With: STS311, ENVS333
Prereq: None

IDEA320 Ecological Design II: Worn Out/Broken In

This course will function as a design studio that examines the afterlife of material production. While designers have traditionally focused their attention on the creation, distribution, and consumption of new products, this course asks students to carefully consider everything that follows those acts. By scrutinizing the use, care, maintenance, repair, and eventual demise of designed objects, students come to understand the intended and unintended consequences of making. Rigorous observation and research lead to the creation of analytic drawings and models for presentation at project reviews.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST320, ENVS321
Prereq: ARST270 OR ARST235 OR ARST220

IDEA321 Wood: Building with the Forest

This studio introduces students to full-scale design and construction through the production of a single, collaborative project over the course of the semester. Working from land-based research and precedent analysis, students develop a detailed design for a structure on a specific site in Middletown, then build it together in the field. Materials will be sourced from the northern hardwood forest and the design crafted to suit its ecosystem.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST321, ENVS324
Prereq: ARST270 OR ARST235 OR ARST220

IDEA333 Software Engineering

Software engineering is the application of engineering principles to the software development process. Eliciting requirements from stakeholders, designing the architecture of a program, performing usability studies, and testing a codebase are some of the aspects that elevate program development to software engineering. Focusing on web and mobile apps, students in this course will gain expertise in state-of-the-art frontend, backend, and mobile technologies, as well as related tooling. We will also cover the collaborative organization of software projects, software licensing, software business models, and ethical considerations for professional software engineers.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-MATH
Identical With: COMP333
Prereq: COMP211 AND COMP212

IDEA335 Advanced Methods: Designing for a Pluriverse

In this seminar, students will learn interdisciplinary methods for conducting focused research and fieldwork to study socioecological collapse and importantly, possibilities for composing, assembling, designing more livable, more than human pluriverse. The course will be structured around two real-world case studies and field trips, including the restoration of chestnut trees in/around CT, and the transformation of a birch forest surrounding a decommissioned power plant in Manresa, CT. Course readings and activities will draw from the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), Environmental Sciences and Humanities, and Media Arts/Design.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: Cr/U
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: SBS-STS
Identical With: STS335, ENVS335
Prereq: None

IDEA336 Architecture II

This course is a second-level architecture studio whose focus will be a single, intensive research and design project. As the semester progresses, additional design, representation, and production tools will be introduced and used for developing work for the project, from graphics software to the laser cutter. Additional information about the architecture studio at Wesleyan and its past projects may be found at: http://www.facebook.com/wesnorthstudio
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.50
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST336
Prereq: ARST235

IDEA338 Building Nothing: Design After Progress

The built environment is responsible for over 40% of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, but despite attaching words like "sustainable" and "resilient" to their products, design and construction practices remain fundamentally unchanged. This seminar considers the possibility of a design philosophy that doesn't take the goal of creation as a given. Topics include the lifespan of buildings and products, their maintenance and care, the unintended consequences of making, relationships with and obligations to materials and resources, and strategies for degrowth found in indigenous and vernacular design precedents. We read and discuss a key text each week that examines the history of technology and critically evaluates shifting theoretical perspectives on nature and human development as they relate to design.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-CHUM
Identical With: CHUM338, ARHA217, STS333
Prereq: None

IDEA350 Computational Media: Videogame Development

This course examines the interplay of art and science in the development of contemporary videogames using the Unity development platform and commercial artistic game tools. Students develop a comprehensive understanding of computational media, including legal and commercial aspects, combined with hands-on experience in a creative process that integrates design, art, and coding. There will be discussions with invited industry leaders in various subject areas. Students will have the opportunity to work as part of development teams and create working prototypes to better understand the challenges and rewards of producing graphic interactive software within a professional context.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 2.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Identical With: FILM250, COMP350, CIS350
Prereq: None

IDEA351 Videogame Architecture and Programming in Unity

Game Architecture and Programming in Unity centers around software design efficiencies and their application to real-time simulation and related interactive media. Students develop working prototypes with the Unity game engine, learn C# programming, and learn to appreciate the efficiencies of different software architectures and project structures. This class is intended to strengthen student knowledge and help bridge to classes such as Wesleyan's existing IDEA350/COMP350 offering each Spring. By offering more comprehensive training in development platforms, as well as practical experience in technologies that accompany base programming when creating interactive media, students will have a deeper understanding of ways to develop ideas by better understanding the creative tools available. Examples of topics to be covered will include: entity-component vs. inheritance systems, singletons and Unity alternatives, and Scene workflows. Digital Artists will learn to integrate visual design programs such as Blender into the Unity platform as well.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-IDEA
Prereq: None

IDEA353 Robotics

Students will use hands-on projects, building and programming Arduino-based robots to learn about the field of robotics. Topics will include perception, locomotion, localization, common programming frameworks for robotics, and ethical considerations. Some background in electronics and mechanical construction may be helpful but is not required.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-MATH
Identical With: COMP353
Prereq: COMP211

IDEA355 Computational Design and Fabrication

This course introduces students to computational design and fabrication, which is an exciting application of computing and lays the foundation for the future manufacturing industry. We will focus on how computing can support computational design and also working with fabrication technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting. Lecture topics include hardware abstraction languages, geometry processing fundamentals, physics-based simulation, optimization techniques, and data-driven design methods. Hands-on activities will complement lectures, providing practical experience with fabrication hardware and software tools. No prior knowledge of fabrication is required. Some background in linear algebra (MATH 221 Vectors and Matrices or MATH 223 Linear Algebra or equivalent) is highly recommended. Students who have not taken one these courses may want to do some reading before the course or be prepared to learn some of that material as the course progresses.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-MATH
Identical With: COMP355
Prereq: COMP212 AND MATH228

IDEA359 Space Design for Performance

In this course, students will study, construct, and deconstruct the performative space, whether in the theater or site-based, by analyzing the space as a context to be activated by the body of the performer and witnessed by an audience. Through practical assignments, the class will learn the aesthetic history of the theatrical event (considering plays, rituals, street parades, and digital performances, among others), while developing and discovering the student's own creative process (visual, kinetic, textual, etc.). Students will be guided through each step of the design process, including close reading, concept development, visual research, renderings or drawings, model making and drafting. In this course, special emphasis is given to contemporary performance as a mode of understanding cultural processes as a relational system of engagement within our ecosystem, while looking at environmental and sustainable design, materials, and the environmental impacts of processing. Students will create and design performance spaces, while realizing scale models and drawings and integrating the notions of design and environmental principles and elements. Students will have the opportunity to develop skills using 3D-drafting and 3D-modeling software. This course counts towards the Theater Arts category for the THEA major.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-THEA
Identical With: THEA359, DANC359, ENVS359
Prereq: THEA105 OR THEA150 OR THEA185 OR ARST131 OR ARST190

IDEA360 Media for Performance

This course examines the use of media and technology as it relates to dramaturgy and design for performance. Class time will be used for lecture, discussion, and experimentation, during which we will explore new technologies used in the industry, including projections, motion tracking, and software such as After Effects and Isadora. Throughout the semester, students will use the skills learned to create their own digital performances.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-THEA
Identical With: THEA360, DANC364
Prereq: None

IDEA364 Architecture: Historiography, Theory, Criticism; Traditional and Contemporary Approaches

This seminar -- intended primarily for majors in history of art and architecture, for studio majors concentrating in architecture, and students interested in urban studies -- surveys different methods of studying architecture and its history. Emphasis throughout is on comparison of general theories of interpretation in art history and other disciplines and their application to specific works of art and architecture. Topics include monumentality and collective memory, stylistic analysis, philosophical aesthetics, iconography and semiotics, patronage and ideological expression, structural technology and building process, material culture and consumption, vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes, spatial form, urban landscapes, sociology, and affordable housing. Along with colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial studies of architecture, the seminar incorporates feminist architectural history and theory, energy studies, race and histories of modern architecture, and questions of canon formation and canonicity.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARHA364
Prereq: None

IDEA370 Regenerative Design II

This course builds on the exploration and knowledge learned in Product Design I to discover opportunities for systems thinking in design. Students will study challenges and opportunities related to aging, education, food, and mobility to investigate potential opportunities through the lens of regenerative design. The course will support students in developing digital modeling skills as well as rapid prototyping and fabrication techniques. Students will work both individually and collaboratively in a studio environment. Field trips to New York City design ateliers, fabricators, and workshops may be expected as part of this course.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST370
Prereq: ARST270 OR ARST235 OR ARST220

IDEA375 Modeling the Earth and Environment

Models can provide insights into Earth systems that are difficult to obtain by direct experimentation or observation. This course will introduce students to the process of translating Earth systems into idealized mathematical models, specific methods for solving the resulting equations, and implementation of models in MATLAB. We will explore cases from a range of topics in the earth and environmental sciences to gain a better appreciation of the insights models can offer. Students should have MATLAB installed on a laptop computer for in-class work.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: NSM-EES
Identical With: E&ES375, E&ES575
Prereq: MATH120 OR MATH121

IDEA383 Introduction to Costume Design for Performance

This course is an exploration of costume design concepts for contemporary performance including theater and other genres. The class will include beginning elements of costume design, including character/script analysis, research, costume lists, action charts, visual design concepts and techniques, and collage and drawing skills. This course counts towards the Theater Arts category for the THEA major.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-THEA
Identical With: THEA383
Prereq: THEA105 OR THEA185 OR ARST131 OR ARST445

IDEA386 Intermediate Time-Based Media

We live in a world where screens are often taken for granted. How has the omnipresence of video transformed visual perception? This course focuses on video installation and the ways moving images shift our relationship to objects, space, and one another.



Students will gain hands-on experience with projection-mapping software and learn to edit video for multi-channel installations, focusing on how to create truly immersive environments. Through weekly exercises and regular group critiques, we will unpack how the videos we encounter daily change our relationship with both our own bodies and the material world. We will look at work by artists who emphasize the physicality or immateriality of video through installation, performance, and web-based art.



Building on the history of experimental and avant-garde practices of the 20th and 21st centuries, work in this course may take the form of installations, performances, videos, texts, participatory projects, or site-specific works. Successful completion of the course provides a solid foundation for experimentation in the expanded field of contemporary artistic practice.



Enrollment preference will be given to students who have successfully completed ARST 286 or ARST 287.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: OPT
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST386, DDC386
Prereq: None

IDEA387 Virtual Production: The Music Video

This intensive studio course will explore the breadth and depth of the music video genre. Students will learn advanced post-production, motion capture, and video recording techniques. Class sessions will include technical demonstrations, group discussions, and conversations with practitioners in the field. Readings and screenings will examine the relationship between music videos, technology, contemporary art, and popular culture. Students will learn how to use the 3D motion capture studio and record live musical performances. Software will include Adobe AfterEffects, Blender, and DaVinci Resolve. Through weekly exercises and a final independent project, students will learn to work collaboratively and develop a distinct creative voice. The course will culminate with a final music video project, to be screened at the end of the semester. Previous experience in Adobe Premiere Pro software is required. Preference will be given to students who have successfully completed ARST 286, ARST 386, DDC 108, or DDC 448. All students must be concurrently enrolled in the virtual production lab which meets Fridays 1:20 p.m. - 3:20 p.m. in DDC.
Offering: Crosslisting
Grading: A-F
Credits: 1.00
Gen Ed Area: HA-ART
Identical With: ARST387, DDC387
Prereq: None

IDEA401 Individual Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

IDEA402 Individual Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

IDEA409 Senior Thesis Tutorial

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F

IDEA410 Senior Thesis Tutorial

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: A-F

IDEA411 Group Tutorial, Undergraduate

Topic to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

IDEA419 Student Forum

Student-run group tutorial, sponsored by a faculty member and approved by the chair of a department or program.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U

IDEA420 Student Forum

Student-run group tutorial, sponsored by a faculty member and approved by the chair of a department or program.
Offering: Host
Grading: Cr/U

IDEA424 Advanced Research Seminar, Undergraduate

Advanced research tutorial, project to be arranged in consultation with the tutor.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

IDEA429 Senior Thesis Tutorial

Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

IDEA491 Teaching Apprentice Tutorial

The teaching apprentice program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to assist in teaching a faculty member's course for academic credit.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT

IDEA492 Teaching Apprentice Tutorial

The teaching apprentice program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to assist in teaching a faculty member's course for academic credit.
Offering: Host
Grading: OPT