Course policy

Attendance and Responsibility

This is a lab class where everything happens in the lab. Thus, class attendance is required. If you must miss a class for a legitimate reason please inform us early as possible so that we can plan appropriately and provide you with makeup materials. Given the challenges of the COVID pandemic, we have tried to make the equipment and lab resources portable and available for every student, so that if you need to work in quarantine you will have all the required parts. We will have all the course materials (notes, labs, lectures, class recordings) available at all times, so if you need to miss class for legitimates reasons, you can still access everything you need.

Course Assistants

There are several Olin students who are working for the course. They will provide extra tutoring and help off hours. A schedule will be posted as the year starts.

Laptop Use

Bring your laptop to every lab class. While you need your laptop to connect to lab equipment, try to avoid the temptation to check your email and/or social media during class!

Equipment

All equipment for the course is college property and should remain in the classrooms, unless we specify that it is OK to take something particular to your room. Removing equipment from this room without permission is called stealing. period. For those off campus this semester, you should have received a box of supplies for the course. We may encounter issues where we have to improvise a little if something changes, please let us know ASAP if you appear to be missing a vital piece of equipment.

Grading Policy

If you show up and do your work, you chances of doing well in this course are extremely high. You're going to face some challenging content, and some things will take a while to click (don't freak out if you're struggling to understand something... you're not alone). In addition to learning technical content and skills, we want you to practice professionalism and time management. Therefore, we are asking you to turn in everything on time (even if they are not perfect), so that you don't fall behind. You have the opportunity to resubmit things if you need to.

  • Labs will be graded on a 0-10 scale. 9-10 A, 8-9 B, 7-8 C, and 0 is not submitted. Your lab grade for the course is a straight average of all labs.

  • Problem sets will also be graded on a 0-3 scale. Problem sets will be graded strongly on effort - i.e. you can get an 3/3 even if some of your answers are incorrect.

  • Your final course grade will be 2/3 labs and 1/3 problem sets.

  • You are allowed to resubmit something within one week if there is something you missed or not understand the first time around. If you find that you are needing to resubmit more than 1 or 2 labs throughout the semester, then you should speak the instructor.

Life throws us all curveballs sometimes, especially this year. If issues outside class are impacting your ability to keep with the work - see one of the faulty. They will help you come up with a plan to get on track. Do not ask Ninjas for extensions or special accommodations.

Weekly lab reports

All labs will be submitted via Canvas one week later before your next lab session starts. Course assistants will grade and comment on your labs during the class period when you submit it. They will provide comments such that your future labs will get better and better as the year goes on. If you have questions on the comments, please see one of the faculty. For each of your lab reports, you will receive an overall grade and specific comments for strategies to improve your report (the comments are on Canvas). We are providing grades on lab reports to help you get a sense of expectations. The grade options are:

  • "10-Excellent": Very high quality work. Figures are beautiful. Writing is clear and concise. The evidence/data collected is clearly presented, and the analysis/interpretation is thoughtful.

  • "9-Very good": Great work. Room for minor improvements, but overall a strong effort.

  • "8-Good": Good quality lab report. Room to grow in figures or writing, but overall an appropriate quality for the course.

  • "7-Marginal": It's clear that you made an honest attempt. There are some significant errors, major conceptual misunderstandings, and/or poor communication in writing/figures.

  • "5-Unacceptable": The quality or quantity of work in this lab report is not acceptable to be considered a completed lab report. Often this is because a significant portion is missing, but you actually attempted the lab. (There is an option to resubmit.)

  • "0-Missing": Nothing has been submitted.

Here is a LaTex template for those who want to use it. It is not required. Here is an example that would receive full credit. The emphasis in general should be on the results section.

Problem sets

We will alternate between using class time to work on labs and problem sets. Problem sets are activities to integrate the fundamental circuit analysis techniques with hands-on experiments. The problem set assignments will checked for completeness, but not graded and corrected. The problem set assignments are meant to get you to explore the fundamental concepts. We will usually ask for some analysis or some simple figures. Problem sets are not lab reports and don't require you to provide detailed explanations. Handwritten analysis is fine. Problem sets are graded more coarsely than lab reports. If you have attempted all the work and it is largely good, you will get a 3. It need not be perfect work for a perfect score. The idea is to reinforce concepts and for you to make an honest effort with the material. A two would represent some effort, but there are fractions of the work missing. A 1 would represent low apparent effort, but that some of the work was attempted.

Collaboration Policy

You are encouraged to work with others, but please turn in your own work. You will be required to take all your own data and do your own experiments. Turning in the same plot as a friend is considered academic dishonesty.