What is physical computing?

Electrical engineering is difficult. These days, most engineers attend years of formal training at colleges and universities, while amateur hobbyists can spend a decade mastering the skills, knowledge, and ability to assemble physical devices, like robots, computers, calculators, or music players. A large portion of this difficulty comes from the fact that electrical engineering requires the manipulation of electrons, which are non-obvious, invisible, and often times difficult to predict. After this hurdle is overcome, another hurdle involves the fact that most electronic tinkering involves components (e.g. IC’s, or integrated circuits) that require large instruction manuals and circuit diagrams to understand.

This wasn’t always the case. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, during the dawn of personal computing, discrete electrical components, otherwise known as those little black “chips” that sit on circuit boards, were the most popular way to assemble complex circuits. These components had simple functions, like checking whether 2 input wires were high (+5) voltage, or low (0 ground) voltage. Hobbyists would connect several discrete components together with wire, solder a few connections, and a circuit was born.

Today, the field of electrical engineering has largely outgrown the average hobbyist. As the number of transistors per square inch increases, discrete electrical components shrink in size, or become far more complex. While a 1 inch by .25 inch black chip once fit only a single comparator or logic gate, that same chip space may now contain megabytes of memory space, thousands of lines of code, ethernet and WiFi connections, and MP3 decoding functions. This is great for the end consumer, because it results in smaller, more powerful, and generally more useful devices. However, it is obvious to see that reverse engineering these devices is now next to impossible for the hobbyist.

Physical computing is a movement that seeks to return the modern digital age of electronics to the same ease of use and approachability that existed in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It does this by making complex circuitry accessible to same individual equipped only with wire cutters and wire. All wires, components, and connections on circuits are clearly labeled. Project cases are transparent and encourage users to peer inside. If a circuit is “physically approachable”, its functionality can be easily reverse engineered by merely looking at it, its behavior is easy to modify or extend using nothing more than wire, cutters, solder, an iron, and another circuit.

Physical computing is about encouraging users of devices to tinker, experiment, extend functionality, and modify the devices around them to accommodate personal needs.