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Course Policies

Most of the policies in this course should be reasonably obvious and all follow UBC's own policies. However, they are here for direct reference and because it is a UBC policy to state them.

Collaboration​

Collaboration is encouraged and expected in this course. The core rule, negatively put, is that you cannot misrepresent work that is not your own as your own. The core rule, positively put, is that you can work together as much as you want, but you can only hand in and take credit for stuff you've actually worked on.

For example, the labs are mostly collaborative, and, since you will all be working on the robot together, you will all appropriately take credit for the work you all did together. However, if you did not participate very much, and you misrepresent yourself by taking credit when you have not worked on the lab, then that is indeed a form of academic misconduct.

Similarly, we expect you to work together on design challenges during the lecture, and to discuss them on your own with others. Shared work is indeed shared, and you are welcome to work off of the same conceptual base as someone else. Direct copying, however, is not allowed.

This applies to other sources of help as well. Partners, friends, tutors, websites, generative AI, all of it: get help when you need it, but don't copy. Put away the help when it comes to actually making your own work, and make whatever you're making yourself.

Group Relationships​

At one point, you will make a group work document where you outline the expectations for collaboration. Everyone is expected to follow the expectations document, to make themselves available for responses to messages within one business day (or faster), to attend scheduled meetings, and to contribute equally to the workload. There are no exceptions, unless very carefully negotiated far ahead of time with an instructor.

For the most part, we will allow you to conduct your own internal group affairs, checking in once a week during lab. You can always request mediation from the teaching staff.

In the case of unmediated conflict, you are expected to state your expectations for the other person's behaviour objectively and the consequences before enacting them. For example: "I was expecting you to work on the robot over the weekend, and you did not, so if you do not work on the robot again this weekend, I will have to work with someone else." You do not need to criticize someone's character or speculate on their reasons for not meeting expectations, simply state the behaviour and the outcome.

In the worst case, we will simply split your group up. Nobody is required to continue to work with someone they do not want to work with, but everyone is required to complete the labs. Most people find it preferable to work on their own, rather than coax an unwilling team member into working. You may be required to entirely re-create a working robot if you end up without it.

Therefore, it's best to decide to get along.

Code, Kits and Generative AI​

You are welcome to use generative AI for any Arduino or Processing.org code. You can also use it for creating UIs, animations, or other code-based products. Any and all ideation, design drawings, and writing must be entirely done by you, usually by hand. However, generative AI may be used for creating work that you trace or print and use in collages, as long has it has been significantly re-worked by hand.

Good design absolutely requires "stealing good ideas" and "reusing materials," so the standard is "bricolage", i.e., the construction or creation of an art from any materials at hand. Even before generative AI, this was the standard in this class. Sometimes, Arduino kits or compact sensor modules are made that are useful to repurpose for project. That's fine, but your project can't just be the kit build, it has to be made your own. Use anything you can to make your thing, just don't hand in a pre-made kit build, a fully copy-pasted program that you have not modified significantly, something that your friend made, etc. Hopefully, this standard is clear: your work is your work. We can tell.

Attendance, Attitude, and Participation​

We expect full attendance and participation, as well as respectful conduct, and usually, this is not a problem. However, to be clear, you are expected to attend all lectures and labs and to participate fully, and to treat your colleagues with respect. If you must be away from lecture, and you know ahead of time, you must inform your TA. If you must be away from lab, you must inform BOTH your TA and your group with enough time so that they can make plans for your absence.

Disrespect will not be tolerated. At the lightest end, doing other activities during lecture and lab time, e.g., homework for another class, will not be tolerated. At the strongest end, intense criticism, violence, threats, stalking, sexual comments, or other disrespectful behaviour will not be tolerated at any time. If that occurs, you will be asked to leave, will forfeit your participation mark, and potentially be asked to meet with the program director.

Similarly, your projects should be in line with the policy of respect. It is often tempting for students to create robotic work that deals with death, weapons, sexuality, or violent scenarios, however, we do not have the appropriate safeguards in place to deal well with such topics in this class (compared to, say, a good visual arts or literature class). Paint with light colours in this class.

The standard is reasonability, fairness to your group, and the experience of your colleagues. We understand that people have difficult lives, job interviews, high workloads, sicknesses, missed busses, etc., and we're fine to accommodate a reasonable level of difficulty. However, our course policies must address the very occassional violation of reasonability, so, we reserve the right to dock participation marks, split up groups, or enforce other consequences for repeated misbehaviour. Again, this is quite rare, but it does occur, and so must be addressed here.

Teaching Staff Use of AI​

The teaching staff will not use AI for any grading, except, very rarely, potentially to assess their OWN tone voice in a comment to you. If there is a suspected case of plagiarism, we may use AI in a non-identifying way to assess whether content is AI-generated, but that should be exceedingly rare. Most of the time, your feedback will be given to you in person.