60-439 Advanced SIS: Objects of Play
10 units, Carnegie Mellon University
Objects of Play is a projectbased studio lab course that explores the concepts, fabrication techniques, and history behind the creation of play objects. Supported in part by the CMU Center for the Arts in Society Borderlines initiative, this course will explore play as a lens and mechanism for seeing, thinking, and engaging across cultural borderlines. In this class, students will learn about, discuss, and research cultures of play as revealed through the history and contemporary life of a broad range of physical examples, such as toys, play spaces, playgrounds, games, and the people who both make them and play them. Students in this course will come to define their own area of interest related to course materials and embark on a series of projects to make play objects of their own design. The course will cover methods in the design and fabrication of play objects, including the use of digital and physical fabrication tools such as those in our wood shop, equipment in our sewing and soft sculpture labs, and use of 3D printers, laser cutters, and our CNC router in conjunction with 3D CAD modeling. Course includes a series of CASsponsored lectures by artists, toymakers, and scholars in the field of play.
Prerequisites: 60-130 or 60-131 or 60-134 or 60-133 or 60-132
Offered: Spring 2027
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