Reading Assignments & Participation

• Scored through participation watching the video and reading the chapters before class, in-class polls, in-class collaborations, or contacting me with a question about a specific slide.

• Sometimes 1-2 polls per day

• Answering any poll gets you full points for the day (even if you are wrong!)

• Answering correctly gets you bits of extra credit

• Polling website at this link. Remains constant throughout the semester.

Perusall

• 1-2 short content videos by Professor Jed will be posted 2 days before each class
  • Around 10 min each
• The expectation is that you have watched those videos and thought about that content before arriving to class
  • We’ll be going over the lecture briefly then jump to demonstrating the content, not introducing the content
• A Perusall assignment is due before class starts each day, so ensure you have watched and interacted with these content videos
• Get full points by watching them and asking questions or responding to questions or prompts myself or others have left

Homework

• Falls into two categories:
  • Problem Sets: smaller, more focused assignments
    • Graded on standard, numeric scales
  • Projects: larger, more integrative assignments
    • Graded on a more qualitative scale (next slides)
• All will be due on Mondays at 10:00pm
• Submissions of both will be handled through Classroom 50 formally Github Classroom
  • Learn how to use GitHub for this class from Jed’s videos which is the same as using Classroom 50.
  • Follow along in todays class to learn how (if time permits)
• 3 cumulative late days (24 hours max) over the entire semester without penalty then penalties enacted for each subsequent day late (terms & conditions apply see the syllabus).

Project Sneak Peeks!

Project Scoring

Sections

• Everyone will be placed into small sections of approx. 8-10 students, with one section leader
• All section leaders are students who recently took and excelled in this course
• Will meet as a group with your section leader once a week for an hour to go over and work on problems/projects
  • These meetings will be on Mondays or Tuesdays and it is mandatory
  • You can have 3 excused absenses throughout the semester. Contact section leader prior when you will be absent.
    • beyond 3 absenses (excused or not) will cause you 5% deduction from your cummulative grade
  • Poll out today where you can enter in your availability on these days so that we can get people placed into sections
• Section leaders will serve as your major support! Ask for help or guidance from them weekly
• Prof. Jed is in charge of the sections and they are planning to start section meetings next week

Tests

• Tests are necessary to assure retention of material and ensure that some are not getting too much help on the assignments.
• Just two midterm this semester and one final:
  • Midterm 1 on Oct 2nd (in-class, more info to come)
  • Midterm 2 on Nov 6th (in-class, more info to come)
  • Final:
    • 9:10 – 10:10 M/W/F -> Tuesday December 8th (8:am - 11am)
    • See this calendar to confirm your exact date. (Finals are in-class, use of computer, partially open)
• This policy has actually been seen to improve student scores, as it prevents you from wasting tons of time obsessing about a small mistake!
• Practice questions and study materials will be given out in advance.

Communication

• I have had much better luck recently channeling class communication (announcements, questions, answers, etc) through a class Discord server and on Canvas
  • Invite instructions are posted on the main Canvas landing page and on the second slides for this class
  • Totally free to sign up and use Discord
  • If you already use Discord, you can create another account to switch between, or you can use your existing account
• Both Canvas and Discord will be the main online location for announcements and questions and answers.
• Discord has support for code-blocks when talking about code by surrounding code in triple backticks: ```this is formatted nicely as code```

Course Policy: Use of AI or Genenerative AI

• I recognize the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence GenAI in intro programming course.
• As such, I encourage students to explore and utilize these technologies ONLY as supplementary learning tools
• AI can be an excellent resource for:
  • Explaining complex concepts, Providing coding examples, debugging suggestions
  • Recommending best practices, Exploring new ideas and approaches
• Do not use AI to directly solve assignments: Assignments are designed to develop your skills and understanding.
• Using AI to generate solutions for assignments is strictly prohibited.
• Acknowledge AI usage when you use it for inspiration or assistance in your work, clearly acknowledge it.
  • Include a brief note explaining how and where AI was used.

Course Policy: Academic Honesty

1. Learning programming, in most cases is by copying, integrating, & debugging codes.
   • Use these strategies in a very helpful manner
   • Be honest and transparent
     • trust the instructor not to mark you down when you disclose your helper
   • Use pensieve AI to learn and collaborate
2. You must not copy someone entire solutions or program code and paste as though it is your own. This is plagiarism!!!
   
3. You must not share your solutions or code with other students.
   • But you can explain to them on how to solve the problem.
   • You are also encouraged to work alongside others enroute to finding a solution.
4. You must indicate on all your submitted assignment who, what, or where you received any assistance.

Diving In

Effective Communication

Giving Clear Instructions

• We will initially make the language extremely simple so that we can focus on the second layer
• Karel the Robot exists in a very simple 2D world
• Has a very limited set of actions:
  • Can move forward one space
  • Can rotate counter-clockwise (turn left) 90 degrees
  • Can pick up a beeper
  • Can drop off a beeper
• We will be spending the first several class days just interested in how we can take these simple instructions and get Karel to solve a wide variety of problems
  • This content is not in your book, but more in-depth descriptions can be found here

The Karel World

Karel Commands

• As we mentioned before, Karel is a simple robot, and can really only do 4 potential actions

  Command	Action
  move()	Moves Karel forward one corner in whatever direction they are facing
  turn_left()	Rotates Karel 90 deg counter-clockwise
  pick_beeper()	Picks up a beeper on the ground
  put_beeper()	Places a beeper on the ground

• Our commands are just sequences of these actions

Example

One Solution

def main():
    move()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    move()
    turn_left()
    move()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    move()
    pick_beeper()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    move()
    move()
    put_beeper()

GitHub Classroom Demonstration

• There will be instructions on how to run through this process on Jed’s video
• but I’ll (as time permits) demonstrate how you would usually use GitHub Classroom
• Grab the PS0 posted in week 1 on canvas to test if your installation stack is working