This is a new interdisciplinary course that will concentrate on the collaborative design and construction of artificial systems that can conduct an orchestra, and also react and respond to the musicians. The outcome will consist of systems that will combine the physical arm movement of the robotic performance with animated visual displays that provide a feedback similar to the facial expression of a human conductor, thus giving the robotic conductor "a human heart". In this setting, the course will teach collaboration and computational thinking.
The course will be taught by professors Andrea Salgian from computer science, Teresa Nakra from music, Jennifer Wang from mechanical engineering and Christopher Ault from IMM, and is part of a research project recently funded by the National Science Foundation.
Prerequisites: CSC 310 & CSC 340 with a minimum grade of "C" are prerequisites.