There are 12 lab exercises including one lab practicum.
Lab 0 does not require any report and has no points associated with it.
Labs 1-10 require brief lab reports and are worth 30% of your overall grade (3% each).
The practicum does not require a lab report. It is a hands-on lab test worth 10% of your overall grade.
You must attend the lab section you are registered for. If you need to change labs, contact your instructor and/or academic advisor.
You will need a laptop that meets Bagley College of Engineering requirements for all labs and the practicum. For labs 6-10 and the practicum, you will need your parts kit.
You are encouraged to complete as much of the lab as possible on your own before your lab session.
If you are unable to attend lab, contact your TA before the lab begins. You will be able to make the lab up during another section, but you must have permission in advance. Your lab is still due by your next scheduled lab session.
Contact your instructor for excused absences whose duration exceeds the time between labs.
Prelab is worth 20 points for every lab. Unless you have prior permission, you may only obtain prelab points at your scheduled lab session. If you are late more than 15 minutes to lab, then you forfeit the prelab points. If your prelab is not ready to be checked off when you walk in the lab door, you forfeit the prelab points.
If you have an unexcused absence from lab, it will be reported to your instructor. You will not be eligible to receive prelab points if you subsequently attend a later lab session.
You are expected to attend every lab and stay until you have completed the lab or the time expires. This is to force you to make some progress on the lab during the lab period while you have TA access.
If you do not complete the lab during the lab period, then you may attend a later lab session to finish it and get checked off. You do not need permission to do this. However, students in that lab session have priority for seating and TA assistance. You may also contact the TA and arrange a time to be checked off.
Do not eat in the laboratory. Beverages must be in closed containers. Clean up your lab area before you leave.
Students must submit lab reports in PDF. Word documents are NOT accepted. Don’t compress (zip, rar, uha etc) your report file.
Lab reports are informal. However, they must display your understanding of the tasks performed and have a neat, professional appearance.
The title page should contain the following: Lab name & number, your name & NetID, course & lab section, and date on successive lines. See sample report below.
Second page onwards should contain:
A brief description of the overall lab activity, intelligible to an outside reader.
A brief description of each task performed.
The reporting requirements for each task (specified in the lab writeup) e.g. screenshots, measurements, calculations, with text describing what you are showing the reader.
Submit source code (.v file for lab 1, .s files for labs 2-5, .c files for labs 6-10) as separate files, not screenshotted or copy/pasted into report. Only submit files that are requested.
Remove boilerplate from the beginning of the code and replace with a proper heading:
// Sam Student
// ECE3724 - Section 03
// Lab #1 - myrom.v
// 1/22/24
You may resubmit as many times as you wish before the due date with no penalty. Only your last submission of each file will be graded. You don't have to email the grader if you resubmit.
Reports and checkoffs are due by your next scheduled lab time, at 11:59 PM. For example, if you perform Lab 1 on Monday, September 2, it is due Monday, September 9 at 11:59 PM.
Fifteen points are deducted for each day the report is late. For example, if Lab 1 is due Monday, September 9 at 11:59 PM, and you submit Tuesday, September 10, at 2:03 AM, 15 points would be subtracted from the grade you earned. After 1 week (7 days), a lab grade is automatically assigned a 0.
Late checkoffs are 15 points per day. You will not be double penalized - the maximum late penalty is 15 points/day for either a late report submission or late checkoff.
In some cases, you might have a holiday between when you perform a lab and when the next lab meets, which would mean that you would have more than one week to complete the lab.
You are encouraged to enter the lab at any time that another lab is not in session to complete your work if you did not finish it during the normal lab time. You can also use your home PC for completing your lab work as well.
Lab reports will be graded within a week after lab report due date. Please report any discrepancy in report grading within a week after grading.
Reports must be submitted to receive any credit for a given lab. If you have completed both the prelab and lab exercise but failed to submit a lab report you will receive a zero for the lab.
The report is worth 20 points for neatly and coherently presenting your information to a reader (e.g. clarity of writing, professional appearance, code commenting).
The tasks are worth 60 points. If your report indicates that you did not successfully complete or do not understand a task, you will lose partial credit on the task portion of your lab grade, even if you performed the task during the lab. (e.g. omitted required screenshot, code doesn't run, didn't perform calculations, etc.).
Lab reports that flagrantly violate submission policy (wrong lab, no screenshots, no title page, no text besides headings/labels, mostly blank, code pasted into pdf, paragraphs of lab text pasted in, did wrong problem, etc.) will not be accepted. You will receive a zero for the lab and may resubmit with late penalty.
Lab Point Distribution
Labs with pre-lab:
Pre-lab: 20% [check-off has to be done as soon as entering the lab]
Lab Exercise: 60%
Report: 20%
Labs without pre-lab (for distance students and students with excused absences):
Lab Exercise: 80%
Report: 20%
The course includes a lab test, known as the practicum. Lab test policies are found here. A short summary is below:
You must use your own board to attend practicum.
Your cell phone must be turned off (not silenced, turned off!) and remain on top of the lab bench for the duration of the practicum. If you are observed interacting with your cell phone during the practicum, you automatically receive a 0 grade and will be asked to leave the room.
You may ask the TA questions concerning clarification of the problem statement, but the TA cannot provide assistance in solving the problem.
Your PIC microcontroller board is expected to be working order with all peripherals used in previous labs present (DAC, EEPROM, serial interface, potentiometer).
The practicum is open notes, open book, open laptop. You may use old labs, and web resources. You may NOT receive assistance from another person during the practicum, or provide assistance to another person. You may not talk to other people in the lab during the practicum - the practicum is a test environment. Any violation of these rules will be considered academic dishonesty and will be treated in accordance with University policy.
When you have the practicum solution ready for checkoff, the TA will check your result, and you will be graded per the instructions included with the practicum.
After the practicum, turn in your practicum handout to the TA, submit your code and a screenshot of the console output. If you do not turn in your practicum handout or do not submit your code/screenshots, then you will receive a 0 grade.
You may talk to other students during lab. However you should do your own work and not provide answers for other students, or walk around looking at other students' code. If you need assistance, ask a TA for help.
If you copy another student's lab report or code, or allow your work to be copied by another student, your instructor will be notified and you will be recommended for an Honor Code violation.
From Mississippi State University Student Honor Code - Operational Procedures Manual:
"Falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research or academic work is not accurately represented in the research or work record."
If you do not successfully complete a task and your report fails to mention or glosses over this fact, you will receive a zero for the report portion of your grade as well as for the task.
If you attempt to deceive the grader, e.g. by including screenshots not generated by the code you submitted, your instructor will be notified and you will be recommended for an Honor Code violation.
Available through Canvas.