O’Reilly Media (the publisher of MAKE), in partnership with creativeLIVE, has just announced a new online course, Processing and Arduino in Tandem: Creating Your Own Digital Art Tools:

Create your own drawing and animation software-and learn basic programming and electronics skills at the same time. This engaging 5-week online course introduces you to two simple tools: Processing, a programming language for visual thinkers, and Arduino, a hardware platform for working with electronics. You’ll learn how to use these tools together to build something useful right away.

You don’t need programming or electronics experience to get started. Processing is easy to learn, and you’ll get to know Arduino with a starter kit. You’ll also have direct access to the instructor via online Q&A during the workshop. And here’s the best part: the courses are free. It’s a fun and inspiring way for designers, artists, and beginning programmers to learn basic graphics programming.

The course is free if you watch it live, and the video of the course is available for purchase ($89 for all five sessions, but the price is reduced to $49 until September 28, 2010). There is a project kit available for sale as well.

Schedule: Tuesdays @ 3 p.m. Pacific Time
August 31 – September 28, 2010
Each session is 90-120 minutes

Online Course: Processing and Arduino in Tandem