From the people who bought you the awesome Processing java language, comes Wiring, a programming environment and an electronics prototyping input/ output board for exploring the electronic arts and tangible media.

Yes. Design education and practice increasingly rely on digital technology. For designers to successfully enter this domain they need to understand the inherent qualities in the media they work with, such as electronics and software. Current prototyping tools for electronics and programming are mostly targeted to engineering, robotics and technical audiences. They are hard to learn, and the programming languages are far from useful in contexts outside a specific technology.

Designers need a teaching language and electronics prototyping system that facilitate and encourage the process of learning, that reduce the struggle with electronics design and programming, and that are powerful and flexible enough for the needs of Interaction Design. It can also be used to teach and learn computer programming and prototyping with electronics. It illustrates the concept of programming with electronics and the physical realm of hardware control which are necessary to explore physical interaction design and tangible media aspects in the design discipline.

The Wiring software and the hardware designs of the Wiring electronic input/output board will be freely available for download on the Web. Users will have access to the Wiring electronic input/output board as well. The site contains a reference, and a number of short prototypical examples that explore the media and illustrate the code and the electronics diagrams allowing users to learn by experimenting with them.

Wiring builds on Processing, the open source programming language developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and Interaction Design Institute Ivrea by Ben Fry and Casey Reas. People who learn how to program using Processing can instantly move to program in Wiring and then to other languages or scripting environments like Java, C, C++, JavaScript, Flash or Director. While working on their design concepts, users will be able to sketch, test their ideas and prototype them, by writing small programs and downloading them to the input/output board.

The Wiring input/output board is a general purpose electronic system that includes a microcontroller where the users' programs will run. It provides digital and analog inputs and outputs and functionality that will allow users to interface all kind of sensors and actuators and program the behaviors needed in their projects.This project aims to support education not only in design and art schools but also in different types of learning environments and practices. It will enable users to quickly prototype their ideas and concepts in the physical world, allowing users to concentrate in the quality of their designs, the interaction, ideas, or concepts being illustrated, rather than concentrate on showing that the technology works.

It will contribute sharing ideas and knowledge with the wider community of interaction design and in general to others outside this field. Because it builds on the Processing language, it will take advantage of the existing online community of users around the world and their collective experience. It also builds on my previous professional experience as engineer artist and designer. Yes. Yes. Yes.