15-367/867: Algorithmic Textiles Design (Spring, 2025)
Fridays from 12:00-14:50 in Hunt Library Studio B (HL106C).
Instructor: Jim McCann.
Office hours in the Textiles Lab (Wean 1334), Mondays 2-5pm; or by appointment. (I will also, generally, head to the lab after class.)
Class Piazza: https://piazza.com/cmu/spring2025/15367867.
Description
Textile artifacts are -- quite literally -- all around us; from clothing to carpets to car seats. These items are often produced by sophisticated, computer-controlled fabrication machinery. In this course we will discuss everywhere code touches textiles fabrication, including design tools, simulators, and machine control languages. Students will work on a series of multi-week, open-ended projects, where they use code to create patterns for modern sewing/embroidery, weaving, and knitting machines; and fabricate these patterns in the textiles lab. Students in the 800-level version of the course will be required to create a final project which develops a new algorithm, device, or technique in the realm of textiles fabrication.
Students will work in person with textiles machines, and may develop machines of their own. Students may also work virtually with textiles.
Other versions: This course also appeared (with some variations) in Spring 2023; and, under its old course number (15-469A/869K) in Spring 2021, Spring 2020, and Spring 2019.
Prerequisites
Familiarity with at least one programming language.
Evaluation
Students will be graded out of 60 points, divided as follows:
| Points | Work |
|---|---|
| 20 | Class Exercises / Participation |
| 4·10 | Projects |
Feel free to use source code from others, as long as that code's license permits it and you give proper credit. Using the work of others without giving credit (even if they don't ask for credit) is plagiarism and will result in you failing the course.
Schedule
This schedule is perpetually prone to adjustment.
24 January
14 February
14 March
11 April