MDes Fall 2020 Workshops

MDES-WS: DOL
Designing Our Lives
Rachel Dzombak
In this workshop series, you will leverage the design process to work on your most important project: your life. Through the workshops you will: observe and notice the values they hold and how they align with your career intentions; frame and reframe career staples like networking and informational interviewing into opportunities; imagine and design visions for your life; make and experiment with your ideas to learn what works for you and devise action plans. The work done in these workshops aims to give you confidence in the skills needed for our present moment: immersion in ambiguous situations, imagining and conceptualizing alternative futures, and learning through experimentation and failure. It also serves to help you start this conversation amongst the MDes Cohort – life is something that is hard to design alone. It’s immensely helpful to have a language to talk about these big questions in community with others.

MDES-WS: CODE
Encountering Programming: Hands-on with Foundational Software Tools
Sarah Sterman
Programming is a useful tool for realizing designs with digital or partly-digital interactions. In these two workshops, we will share a light introduction to several common tools for programming such as Python and Javascript. We will walk through methods for choosing a tool or language that is appropriate to the problem you want to solve, how to approach a new tool, and how to read documentation. Finally, you will build some small sample projects to get your feet wet!   These workshops will not try to teach you everything you need to know about programming itself. Instead, they should help you feel more prepared to learn and use programming in your work. The workshops are targeted at beginners, and will assume no knowledge in any specific language.

MDES-WS: NMEDIA
Code as Creative Material: Exploring New Media Software Tools
Kuan-Ju Wu
The workshop Code as Creative Material introduces a series of creative programming tools for visual exploration. During the 2-day workshop, participants will be introduced to expressive software tools such as Processing, P5, OpenFrameworks, VVVV, MaxMSP, and TouchDesigner.  Participants will learn how to set up the development environment for each tool and understand the basic operational syntax through a variety of examples. We will also look at a variety of projects created by the artists and technologists with each tool.

MDES-WS: MODEL
An Introduction to Visual Scripting and Parametric Modeling
Matt Turlock
Grasshopper is a visual scripting and parametric modeling plugin for Rhino 3D, a digital modeling software. Parametric modeling is a variable and logic chain based digital tool for definition of a bounded problem and exploration of the resulting design space. Manipulate variables to create, transform, and output complex geometry and visual data. 

This workshop introduces the Grasshopper canvas as a parametric modeling environment, explores the underlying mechanisms governing many parametric problems, and provides a broad overview of potential Grasshopper applications. A number of small design challenges and demonstrations will build an initial understanding. Resources for developing further fluency are proffered at the end of the workshop.

 

MDes Fall 2020 Workshop Schedule

All workshops are virtual (via zoom) and will take place from 8.00 – 10.00am PDT.

09.26 | DOL 1
10.03 | DOL 2
10.10 | Break (no session)
10.17 | CODE 1
10.24 | CODE 2
10.31 | Break (no session)
11.07 | NMEDIA 1
11.14 | NMEDIA 2
11.21 | Break (no session)
11.28 | Thanksgiving weekend
12.05 | MODEL 1
12.12 | MODEL 2

MDes Workshop Registration

Registration for each workshop is required so we have a sense of the number of participants and instructors can plan accordingly. Please register for each workshop below. We currently are planning to record these workshops so the participants will be able to refer back or revisit the material.

MDES-WS: DOL | 09.26 & 10.03
DOL Zoom Registration 

MDES-WS: CODE | 10.17 & 10.24
CODE Zoom Registration

MDES-WS: NMEDIA | 11.07 & 11.14
NMEDIA Zoom Registration 

MDES-WS: MODEL | 12.05 & 12.12
MODEL Zoom Registration 

Jacobs Institute Virtual Fall Workshops

The Jacobs Institute is offering Virtual Workshops this Fall that are open to all members of the UC Berkeley Community. Taught by Jacobs Design Specialists these workshops address topics such as: Fusion 360, Intro to Rhino, Generative Art Using Processing, Arduino Weekly Build.

Jacobs Virtual Workshops are typically offered during the week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays) and the current schedule reflects sessions in September and October. Please check their website for updated information often, as new workshops are regularly added to the schedule.

Recorded workshops will be added weekly to each listing, and you can find workshops from past semesters archived here.