Manchester Digital Laboratory

Omniversity of Manchester

We’re about to launch an exciting new programme of professional training courses at the MadLab, lead by some of the sharpest minds and most cutting-edge practitioners around. Rather than roll out the same-old, last year’s practice, full-time trainers, we’ve reached out to our network to bring recognised experts in their field to teach hands-on skills in affordable workshops. These aren’t just interchangeable tutors delivering the same courses; these are the people who started the projects they are teaching, who use these skills professionally on a daily basis.

We call it the ‘Omniversity of Manchester‘. It’s about giving you the edge in the skills that will be in demand next year, about insider information in where digital platforms are headed, and connecting you with others developing those skills.

We’re still preparing the infrastructure for the Omniversity, but we’ll be providing full materials and signup systems here – please check back if you’re interested, or drop a line on our contact page to be notified when you can sign up.

Our first course, ‘Beginners guide to Arduino and Physical Computing‘, will take place on the 10th February 2011, for £120. It’s a full-day course, and included in the price is an Arduino itself, breadboard, cables and some interesting components (worth £40 alone). You’ll need to bring your own laptop to work with, but that’s it; we’ll be distributing bound copies of all the materials and documentation, and providing a buffet lunch so you can catch up with what other people are doing or ask the tutors questions.

The course itself will be covering a number of areas:

• The history of Physical Computing
• How to set up and use an Arduino (for Mac, Linux and Windows machines).
• How Electricity Behaves
• Writing programmes for the Arduino
• Input and Output – controlling LEDs, reading sensors
• Talking to the computer – interacting with Processing through your Arduino
• Talking to the computer – building a simple synthesizer
• Arduino expansions – what can you do next for £50

Like all the Omniversity courses, you’ll recieve copies of all the training materials, both electronically and physically, and you’ll be connected with our Omniversity network, providing access to a private platform where you can keep in touch with the other students from the day.

It’s good if you know a little programming, or are at least comfortable with computer-based automation (such as macros), but this isn’t nescessary. Equally, you don’t need an experience of electronics or soldering, as we’ll be learning the basics of circuit building and electrical flow as part of the course.

Tags: Omniversity