GMU:Bots 'n' Plots

Bots 'n' Plots — Malen nach 0 und 1

Werkmodul/Fachmodul
Lecturer: Martin Schneider
Credits: 6 ECTS, 4 SWS
Date: Wednesday 17:00 - 20:30 Uhr
Venue: Marienstraße 7b, Room 204
First meeting: Thursday, 15. Apr. 2015

You need to apply until April 12th, 2015.
Applications after the deadline will not be taken into consideration.

Description

Beware:

The internet of things is infiltrating the social web.
A rich ecosystem of social bots is evolving right now.
Those bots range from the purposeful via the poetic to the philosophical.
And they are starting to talk to each other.

In the Bots 'n' Plots course, we will create little robots that doodle and babble.
Our robots will be based in software, but we will also learn how to connect them with the physical world, using vision sound and serial connections.

In the course of the class you will:

• Learn programming with Python
• Process images and text
• Create generative drawings and poems
• Use APIs for the social web, including Twitter and Mediawiki
• Create your own software bots and make them talk to each other

The course requires no previous programming experience.

As a result of the course you will acquire fundamental programming skills that will enable you to take more advanced courses in the future.
It is recommended to combine the course with the eval(nature) module.

Application for this class is due until April 5th, 2015 via email.
To apply and to find out more about the deadlines, requirements and grading scheme, please refer to the website of the course.

Beschreibung

Achtung:

Das Internet der Dinge erobert die sozialen Netzwerke.
Im Augenblick entwickelt sich ein vielfältiges Ökosystem sozialer Bots.
Die Bots decken ein weites Spektrum ab, vom Praktischen, über Poetisches bis hin zum Philosophischen.
Und sie fangen an miteinander zu kommunizieren...

In Malen nach 0 und 1 werden wir kleine Roboter erschaffen, die kritzeln und brabbeln.
Unsere Roboter bestehen aus Nullen und Einsen, aber wir werden auch lernen sie mit der materiellen Welt zu verbinden, wobei Kameras, Töne und Kabel zum Einsatz kommen.

Im Rahmen des Moduls werdet ihr:

• Programmieren mit Python lernen
• Grafik und Text verarbeiten
• Generative Grafiken und Gedichte erzeugen
• APIs für Soziale Netzwerke nutzen, inkl. Twitter und Mediawiki
• Eigene Software-Bots entwickeln und sie dazu bringen miteinander zu reden.

Dieses Modul erfordert keine Programmierkentnisse.

Im Rahmen des Kurses werden grundlegende Programmierkentnisse vermittelt, die es ermöglichen in Zukunft fortgeschrittene Kurse zu belegen.
Es wird empfohlen diesen Kurs mit dem Projekt-Modul eval(nature) zu kombinieren.

Die Bewerbung für den Kurs muss bis spätestens 5. April 2015 per Email erfolgen.
Weitere Infos zur Bewerbung, Zulassungs-Voraussetzungen, Deadlines und Benotungs-Schema auf der Webseite zum Kurs.

Language

The course will be in English, unless all participants are speaking German.

Eligible Participants

Undergraduates and graduates enrolled in the faculties of:

• Media Art/Design and Media Architecture
• Visual Communication
• Product Design
• Architecture

Requirements

• Burning Interest in Artificial Intelligence, Computer-Linguistics and Generative Design
• Previous course about the Internet of Things highly recommended
• Working knowledge of Web Technologies (HTML, CSS, Javascript ...)
• Time and Devotion for lots of coding homework, which may be frustrating at times
• Programming experience considered helpful

Application

The deadline to apply for this course is April 12th, 2015

You need to provide links to previous work to be elligible to this course.

To: Martin Schneider
Subject: Bots n Plots /// Application
Content:

• Please provide links to three of your visual, poetic or algorithmic works online.

Please answer the questions:

1. What is your favourite bot on twitter?
2. What kind of bot would you like to be able to create at the end of the course?

Schedule

This is the outline of the course.
The details may still be subject to change.

Theme	Topic	Date
Part 1: Python	01: Programming I	Week 1
	02: Programming II	Week 2
Part 2: Plotter Bots	03: Drawing and Plotting I	Week 3
	04: Drawing and Plotting II	Week 4
	05: Image Processing I	Week 5
	06: Image Processing II	Week 6
Part 3: Chatter Bots	07: Language Processing I	Week 7
	08: Language Processing II	Week 8
	09: Generating Poetry I	Week 9
	10: Generating Poetry II	Week 10
Part 4: Social Bots	12: Twitter Bots I	Week 11
	11: Twitter Bots II	Week 12
	13: Wiki Bots I	Week 13
	14: Wiki Bots II	Week 14

Evaluation

• Presence and active participation (required)
• Punctual and complete submission of homework (required)

• 50% Technical and aesthetic execution of the final bot project
• 20% Emergent behaviour from making the robots talk
• 20% Documentation of the final project
• 10% Contribution to the MediaWiki

Links

to be done

Literature

• Russel, Mathew: Mining the Social Web ISBN 978-1449367619
• Segaran, Toby: Programming Collective Intelligence ISBN 978-0596529321
• Bird, Steven: Natural Language Processing with Python ISBN 978-0596516499
• Lobin, Hennig:Computerlinguistik und Texttechnologie ISBN 978-3825232825

Python

This is a list of recommended books for the Python language:

• Beazley, David: Python Cookbook ISBN 978-1449340377
• Chan, Jamie: Learn Python in One Day and Learn it Well ISBN 978-1506094380
• Blum, Richard: Python Programming for Raspberry Pi ISBN 978-0789752055
• Zelle, John: Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science ISBN 978-1590282410
• Gries, Paul: Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python 3 ISBN 978-1937785451

Further Reading

There are a couple of books in the Semesterapparat of Society of Things, that you might want to flip trough.