| Week # | Topics | Lab Topics |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is Exercise? | Lab - Tour of DAPER facilities as "incoming research/design collective" Seminar - Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation on the history of exercise in Western civilization |
| 2 | The Physical Intelligence Model | Lab - Tooling: Using Theraband, students build machines designed to exercise key aspects of physical intelligence (e.g., the body's relation to gravity, whole body movement, the role of sense perception) Seminar - Survey of exercise machines/devices past and present |
| 3 | Visual and Kinesthetic Perception | Lab - Subjective and Objective Experiences of the Body: Walking running, leaping, while blindfolded yields dramatic physical experiences Seminar - Review of preliminary project proposals: concept drawings of three exercise machines/devices designed to cultivate physical intelligence |
| 4 | Physical Thinking | Lab - Thinking through the body for engineering insights: exploring our precognitive understanding of physical principles/properties (e.g., torsion, tension, weight, etc.) Seminar - Brainstorming session on project sketch prototypes |
| 5 | Orientation Strategies: Balancing | Lab - Olympic Stumbling Competition: Playing the line between the maintenance and loss of balance as captured by high-speed video system. Best "compensatory dance" wins Seminar - The motor system at work: strategies for balance; review of student prototypes |
| 6 | Learning Movement | Lab - Exploring unexplored movement: increasingly complex/unusual movements reveal the highly evolved process of feedback involved in physical learning Seminar - Peer review of class projects with prepared questionnaire |
| 7 | Designing Physical Intelligence | Lab - Reworking traditional exercise machines for Physical Intelligence Seminar - Review of critical module; progress reports on projects |
| 8 | E-motion | Lab - Walking a 4 inch beam 40 ft. in the air highlights the physical sensation of emotion and its effect on movement Seminar - May exhibition planning |
| 9 | Applying Physical Intelligence | Lab - Fieldtrip to the MIT Museum: Attempts to build a running robot highlight key points of Physical Intelligence considered in past weeks Seminar - Sketch design session for May exhibition posters |
| 10 | Complex Coordination: Walking Guest Speaker: Dr. Rob Playter, '90, Boston Dynamics Inc. "Physical Intelligence and the Design of Running Robots" | Lab - High-speed video imaging explores bipedal locomotion and the spinal engine model Seminar - Visit to the MIT Biomechatronics Lab for an on-site introduction to current projects (exoskeleton, "smart" prosthetics, etc.) |
| 11 | Final Project and Peer Poster Review | |
| 12 | Overview and Summary |