Bits and Bytes — Winter 2025
About Bits and Bytes
Bits and Bytes is a monthly event hosted by CCS that allows design students to casually tinker with creative technologies while connecting over snacks and drinks.
For the Winter 2025 quarter, we held three sessions led by graduate design students Koh Terai and Sanzhar Myrzagalym, exploring hardware and software in a relaxed, hands-on environment.
Projection-Mapping
Our first session, led by Koh, focused on projection mapping using MadMapper and Figma. Participants learned the basics of prototyping with projections and created simple animations on 3D surfaces like cardboard boxes.
By projecting Figma onto a surface and enabling live collaboration, all eight attendees were able to edit and build a shared scene in real time. It was a playful introduction to the idea of augmenting reality through projection.
This session also gave undergraduates a unique chance to talk informally with graduate students about their experiences in the design program.
Making the room dark for the projections to work
Collaboratively augmenting reality in real-time using Figma and MadMapper
Soldering
Our second session was a soldering workshop hosted by Sanzhar. Many students who had never soldered before had the opportunity to learn the technique — joining two pieces of metal to allow current to pass through — by assembling RGB LED kits.
By successfully soldering, the group was able to create an LED with 3 potentiometers. By dialing in 3 potentiometers, the group was able to explore color mixing with RGB.
In the end, several attendees played a new game we invented — “Color Match,” where one person creates a color, and the other person tries to recreate the same color only after looking at the first color for a brief second.
The soldering workshop allowed the students to get comfortable with soldering and gave them the confidence to tinker with electronics and use essential soldering tips. Oftentimes, soldering is something students are “expected” to know, like cutting, so spending time focusing on it in a small group made it special.
Undergraduate design students learning to solder
Completed LEDs turned into necklaces
Prototyping with Augmented Reality
Our final session explored augmented reality. We used generative AI tools like Meshy to create textures and 3D models, then brought them into Apple’s Reality Composer to build interactive AR scenes. We also got a glimpse of advanced workflows using Reality Composer Pro.
One highlight was seeing how students could build and share AR experiences directly from their iPhones. Some even used their phones’ object-scanning features to bring real-world items, like a potato chip, into their digital scenes.
Exploring Reality Composer features in the iPhone
Creating 3D Models using generative AI (left), Scanning and placing a giant bag of chips (middle), Scanning Objects (right)
Summary of Winter 2025
This quarter’s sessions gave students a casual, low-pressure space to explore creative technologies they’d been curious about. While the goal wasn’t mastery, the exposure and hands-on experience helped build confidence and interest to continue learning.
Bits and Bytes also created a unique space for undergrad and grad design students to connect informally. Grad students, many of whom work as course assistants or have industry experience, were able to share insights and answer questions in a casual setting.
And, of course, conversations often wandered into tangents — from cool CS projects to the latest AI tools. It’s a reminder that creative tech is just as much about community as it is about code.
