Subject Information and Policies

Questions: Please send questions to 6.01-help@mit.edu. This will ensure a quicker answer than questions to individual staff members.

Description

6.01 explores fundamental ideas in electrical engineering and computer science, in the context of working with mobile robots. Key engineering principles, such as abstraction and modularity, are applied in the design of computer programs, electronic circuits, discrete-time controllers, and noisy and/or uncertain systems.

Prerequisites: None
Corequisite: 8.02
Units: 2-4-6
Lectures: T 10-11:30, room 26-100
Lab Section 1: T 11:30-1 and R 10-1, room 34-501
Lab Section 2: T 2-3:30 and R 2-5, room 34-501
Lab Section 3: W 11:30-1 and F 10-1, room 34-501
Lab Section 4: W 2-3:30 and F 2-5, room 34-501

Attendance at the lab sessions is mandatory. Contact one of your lab instructors if you must miss a lab session because of illness or other extraordinary situation (excused by a Dean or Medical official).

Staff

Name Role Office email at mit.edu
Joel Dawson Instructor 39-527A jldawson at mtl
Dennis M. Freeman Instructor 36-889 freeman
Berthold Horn Instructor 32-D434 bkph at csail
Leslie P. Kaelbling Instructor 32-G486 lpk at csail
Tomas Lozano-Perez Instructor 32-G492 tlp at csail
Antonio Torralba Instructor 32-D432 torralba at csail
Brooke Cowan Instructor 32-G480 bcowan
A.J. Aranyosi Instructor 36-893 aja
Kristen Felch T.A. 34-501 kfelch
Sam Glidden T.A. 34-501 sglidden
Eric Grebing T.A. 34-501 egrebing
Stephanie Hsu T.A. 34-501 s_hsu
Alex Hayman T.A. 34-501 hayman
Helen Liang T.A. 34-501 heliang
Ali Mohammad T.A. 34-501 alawi
Jingwen Ouyang T.A. 34-501 piggito
Shreyes Seshasai T.A. 34-501 shreyes
Vikas Sharma T.A. 34-501 vsharma
Dahn Vo T.A. 34-501 dtvo

Office Hours

All office hours will be in 34-501. Office hours begin on February 4.

6.01 Grade

Your grade in 6.01 will be the weighted average of the following component grades:
weight
Online Tutor Exercises5%
Online Tutor Software Labs10%
Online Tutor Design Labs15%
Interviews15%
Nanoquizzes10%
Midterm 110%
Midterm 210%
Final Exam  25%
100%

Due Dates, Lateness Penalties, and Extension Policy

Due Dates for On-line Activities (Exercises, Software Labs, and Design Labs) are given on the Online Homework Tutor. Online Activities must be completed by the scheduled due dates unless officially excused by an Instructor, a Dean, or a Medical Official. Unless officially excused, your grade for late assignments will be multiplied by 0.5. Each student will be allowed exactly one extension that can be applied to the online activities for any single week. To use your extension, you must send a message to 6.01-help@mit.edu by 11:59 pm on the day before the assignment is due. Once you request to use your extension, it cannot be rescinded. Extended assignments are due at 10am on the subsequent Tuesday (except when that date falls on a vacation day, in which case the extended assignment is due at 10am on the subsequent Thursday). Extensions cannot be applied to interviews, or to nanoquizzes or to exams.

Nanoquizzes

A short (15-minute) on-line nanoquiz will be given prior to each design lab session. The purpose of these nanoquizzes is to provide motivation and feedback for learning the materials presented in the weekly lectures, readings, and on-line tutor problems. Nanoquizzes will generally consist of a simple question from this week's assignments and a more difficult question from previous weeks.

The nanoquizzes can only be accessed on-line during the first 15 minutes of your design lab session in 34-501 (i.e., starting at 5 minutes past the hour). Contact one of your lab instructors if you must miss a nanoquiz because of illness or other extraordinary situation (excused by a Dean or Medical official).

Nanoquiz Makeups. You can pick any two nanoquizzes to take again (plus any additional nanoquizzes that were officially excused by a Dean or Medical official). Nanoquizzes can only be retaken at a makeup session on Wednesday May 6, from 4pm to 9pm (except as supported by a Dean or Medical official). You will have 15 minutes to complete each makeup nanoquiz. Your grade on the makeup nanoquiz will replace your previous nanoquiz grade.

Midterm Exams

Midterm exams will be given during the normal lecture period (from 10am to 11:30am) on March 17 and April 14. The exams will cover all materials contained in lectures, on-line tutor problems, nanoquizzes, software labs, and design labs up to the date of the exam.

Final Exam

A three-hour final exam will be given during the Final Examination Period at the end of the semester. The final exam will be comprehensive across all materials in this subject, however, materials since the midterms will be weighted more heavily. The final exam will be scheduled by MIT's Registrar's Office. Conflicts with the scheduled time must be resolved by scheduling a conflict examination with MIT's Registrar's Office.

Regrade Policy

If you find a grading error in an examination or homework assignment, please submit your exam/homework along with a cover sheet that describes the error that you found to your TA. We will review your concern and then regrade the entire exam/homework to try to eliminate the error that you identified as well as any other grading errors. Requests for regrades must be made within one week of the date when the graded exam/homework was returned.

Collaboration Policy

We encourage students to discuss assignments in this subject with other students and with the teaching staff to better understand the concepts. However, when you submit an assignment under your name, we assume that you are certifying that the details are entirely your own work and that you played at least a substantial role in the conception stage.

You will work with a partner in the design labs. You and your partner can equally share all results, code, and graphs that you develop as a team. However, tutor questions about the software labs and design labs are individual. You alone are responsible for any written text.

You should not use results from other students (from this year or from previous years) in preparing their solutions to online tutor problems, nanoquizzes, exams, or written reports. You should not take credit for computer code or graphics that were generated by other students unless you developed those materials while working with your assigned lab partner. Students should never share their solutions with other students.

Any student caught plagiarizing will receive a grade of zero on the assignment. All incidents of plagiarism will be reported to the Committee on Discipline (COD). More information about what constitutes plagiarism can be found at http://web.mit.edu/academicintegrity/

Advanced Programming Option

We are offering an alternative path through 6.01 for those students with substantial programming experience who are looking for an additional challenge. Students doing this option do versions of the Thursday project labs that involve additional programming instead of doing the weekly software labs. The other on-line problems, quizzes and exams are the same in both options.