SPARK: Scientific Prototyping with Agentic Reasoning and Knowledge
PHYSCI 150
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
SPARK challenges students to design and build a new scientific instrument in a single semester and develop a business plan that could become the foundation of a new company. Working in multidisciplinary teams, students will use agentic AI to accelerate development, explore more design possibilities, and extend what a small team can accomplish.
This is a hands-on course: students will turn a scientific measurement challenge into working hardware. Teams will select from staff-provided project briefs and carry their instruments from concept and quantitative specifications through electronic, mechanical, and software design to fabrication, integration, and testing. Each project will complete two design-and-fabrication passes, using measured performance to guide improvements. Throughout, students will learn to direct AI agents, verify their outputs, and evaluate where human–AI collaboration improves engineering speed, quality, and capabilities.
Entrepreneurship is integral to the course. Teams will investigate customer needs, assess competing solutions, analyze manufacturing and support costs, and develop a business plan for bringing their instrument to market. The semester culminates in a working instrument demonstration and a presentation of the technical results and business opportunity, with the potential to pursue projects as startup ventures.
SPARK welcomes advanced undergraduate and graduate students with practical experience building, modifying, or debugging physical systems. Prior experience with agentic AI is not required.
Recommended Prep
Experience with some aspect of scientific instrumentation (electronics, machine shop, optics,..)
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
NOTE: This course requires additional sections; you will be prompted to choose secondary components during the Add to Cart process
