The lab and lab quiz schedule will be on the web page. The assignments for the labs will also be made available on the web page. Read, study, and start working on each lab assignment as soon as you can. Be sure to allocate sufficient time to do it properly. Prepare questions related to any difficulties you have, so you can discuss them with your friends or get help from the assistants during the lab session. You can stay the full period and work there, interacting with other students and asking questions to the assistants as they arise, or you can stay as little as you like, or not come at all. Even if no one other than you shows up, the assistants will still be there. Our intention is that you make the most of the possibility to interact with others and the assistants, but we are not forcing anyone to come. The lab sessions are like office hours for the lab. If you have difficulties, you can also get help from the assistants during their individual office hours or by making an appointment.
There is no preliminary work or pre-quizzes, and lab reports will not be collected or graded. Labs will be assessed through a lab quiz that takes place about two weeks after the lab assignment is posted. Check the schedule carefully so you do not miss a quiz and get a zero from that lab.
All quizzes will be closed book/notes/devices but you will be allowed to bring "cheat sheets". Specifically, you will be allowed to bring 6 double-sided A4 sheets of paper (6 pieces of paper, 12 sides). These MUST BE WRITTEN WITH A PEN OR PENCIL ON BLANK SHEETS OF A4 PAPER IN YOUR OWN HANDWRITING. They must be originals. No printouts or photocopies are allowed. They cannot be written by someone else. You can include anything you want as long as it is in your own handwriting or your own hand drawing. You can also include hand-drawn graphs and pictures, as long as you draw them. You cannot paste in computer-generated plots or printouts. Likewise, if you want to include code in your cheat sheets, you must write it in your own handwriting. There should be nothing on the paper that was not personally created by you using a pen or pencil. (Unfortunately, we cannot allow printouts of material written in your own handwriting on a tablet or similar device. In past years we had severe problems ensuring the above rules when printouts were allowed, and also because it is not fair to those who do not have a tablet.)
You must turn in ALL your cheat sheets along with your quiz solutions. They will be considered part of your work, but only the quiz solutions will be graded. Unless there is any irregularity the cheat sheets will not be read. Make sure to keep a copy or scan for yourself if you want to, as you will not get them back.
What we recommend: First, work on the lab assignment without getting any help from any humans or machines (including AI). Prepare a lab report in the conventional way, as if you would be turning it in. After earnestly working on it as best as you can, you are free to consult fellow students, assistants, or AI tools. Free cooperation of all kinds is encouraged, but do not steal from yourself the opportunity to tackle it yourself first. Once you complete it, you can check that your results are correct by comparing with fellow students or by using AI. (You can discuss everything with the assistants, but please do not simply ask them to verify that your results are correct.) If your written work is not more than 6 double-sided pages, bring that in as you cheat sheet. If it is longer, you will have to condense it down to 6 double-sided pages.
What we do NOT recommend: We strongly discourage getting the solutions from someone else or making AI do it, and then copying that in your handwriting to prepare your cheat sheets. Although discouraged, this is NOT forbidden. If you want, you can borrow someone elses cheat sheet, copy it to any extent you want in your own handwriting and bring it to the exam. If you want, you can ask an AI tool to prepare your cheat sheet, copy it identically in your own handwriting and bring it to the quiz. There is no limit to cooperation with others, getting help from others, and copying material from others, or using AI tools or other machine assistance BEFORE the quiz. HOWEVER, if you prefer this or similar routes instead of working hard on the labs to solve as much as you can on your own, or at least with relatively minimal help, you will be wasting you chance to learn the material properly, as well as the opportunity to strengthen your analytical capabilities and mental capacity. You will likely not have the chance to make up for the lost opportunity if you make this a regular habit. I realize that not taking this path may sometimes take a lot of willpower, but it is important to recognize that what is at stake is wasting your education and the precious opportunity to develop yourself in terms of both knowledge and mental capacity.
If you are late for a quiz, you will not be given extra time. If you arrive after the quiz is over, you cannot take the quiz.
These rules are designed with the intention of allowing you to achieve three goals at the same time: (i) maximize learning and skill development since you do the work yourself (ii) be fair to others and have a clean conscience (iii) maximize your grade since you are allowed to check your work with others and AI. By deviating from these guidelines, you might be able to save some time and still achieve (iii), but in that case you will not achieve (i) and (ii).
Your two lowest lab grades will be discarded before computing your average. This means you can miss two of the labs and get zero from them, and still have the chance to get a high lab score. This is to cover illness, conflicting exams and other similar situations. Documented excuses such as medical reports and conflicting exams will be considered only if they cover three or more sessions. Documentation covering only one or two sessions will not be considered. Of course, if you miss fewer than two labs, that may help increase your average score.