12/20/21, 1:14 PM 6.

08 Spring 2021

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1) Catalog Description

IMPORTANT: All times referenced on this page refer to MIT time (EST (UTC-5h) until
March 14th 2AM and then EDT (UTC-4h) after that)

Introduction to embedded systems in the context of connected devices, wearables and the
"Internet of Things" (IoT). Topics include microcontrollers, energy utilization, algorithms,
interfacing with sensors, networking, cryptography, and local versus distributed computation.
Students design, make, and program an internet-connected wearable or handheld device. In final
project, student teams design and demo their own cloud-connected IoT system. Enrollment
limited; preference to first- and second-year students.

Prerequisites: 6.0001 or 6.145

Co-req: 8.02

Units: 1-5-6

Lectures: Monday 1:00-2:00 pm, Online (See note below)

2) Lab Sections
There are four lab sections:

Section 1: Tuesday, Thursday 9:30-12:00,

Section 2: Tuesday, Thursday 12:00-2:30,
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Section 3: Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-5:00,

Section 4: Tuesday, Thursday 7:30-10:00,

For the first two weeks of class, lab sections will be completely remote. This is an MIT rule, not
just our rule. After the first two weeks of class, lab sections can continue to happen remotely,
however several sections will also take place in Room 38-530 or nearby lab space. Only on-
campus students may attend in-person lab sections. Details about in-person lab section
attendance will be released early in the semester once enrollment has stabilized.

Attendance at both lab sessions (in person or virtually) is mandatory. You must be in the same
section on both Tuesday and Thursday. You cannont mix and match.

3) Midterm
There is one midterm exam. It is scheduled for Tuesday-to-Wednesday April 13-14, 2021.

4) Office Hours
Weekly office hours will be offered at the following times (but may change):

Monday 7:00-9:00 PM
Wednesday 7:00-10:00 PM
Friday 12:00-3:00 PM
Sunday 4:00-9:00 PM

All office hours will be virtual and (when possible) in the 38-530 (Lab area)

5) Piazza
The class piazza will be used for all important announcements as well as our official help forum
for the class. It is the student's responsibility to make sure to join it and to set their email up so
they see these announcements in a timely manner.

6) Lectures
Lectures will be pre-recorded and posted for asynchronous consumption. Right now the intention
is to get these lectures out on Sunday at some point. On the page of the lecture, there will be a
few short questions posted that you should answer after watching lecture (worth about 2.5% of

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final grade). On Monday 1-2pm, there will be an optional Q&A session via Zoom which you may
attend run by Joe Steinmeyer. The Zoom link will be posted on the lecture pages.

7) Grading
Your grade in 6.08 will be the weighted average of the following component grades:

Regular Exercises 15%

Labs 15%

Design Exercises 15%

Midterm 15%

Peer grading and Participation

5%
and Lecture Questions

Final Project 35%

In addition to the raw percentages, there are several non-linear grade modifiers:

You must complete all labs (get all checkoffs). For each missing lab at the end of the term,
half a letter grade will be subtracted off of your overall grade, in addition to whatever points
are lost from not completing that lab in the first place.
You must complete your final project to pass 6.08, regardless of overall points. If you have a
98% on everything else and you stop working on your project, you will receive an F in the
class.
Missing the exam without an excuse will also result in a half-letter grade subtraction (in
addition to the 0 on the exam).

7.1) Components

7.1.1) Regular Exercises

Regular exercises come out once a week, usually by Monday 4pm and are due the following
Sunday at 11:59pm unless otherwise stated (variations exist due to long weekends; please see
calendar). Grades are based on getting answers correct and completion. We expect that students
should be able to arrive at the correct answer to these questions after some work, and so online
questions will be considered completed if you arrived at the correct answer, regardless of the

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number of submissions you used (within the limits of provided attempts). If you used up all
attempts on a problem, you cannot get more.

7.1.2) Labs

Labs generally happen on Tuesday and Thursday. Each lab session is 2.5 hours long. At the start
of your lab section, you will be partnered with somebody else in the section. This will be indicated
at the top of the lab page along with a location where you are to meet them. If in-person, this will
be a table number (and possibly a room number if we are in multiple lab areas). If remote, this
location will be an automatically-generated video link where you should meet your partner (a jitsi
room served by catsoop). From that poin, you are free to continue using that room or you are also
free to use your own room (Zoom or something else) that you and your partner agree upon. Just
make sure that when asking for assistance, you provide the correct room location for staff to find
you.

Labs consist of exercises, both theoretical and applied as well as checkoffs which you do with
staff. Labs are to be done in pairs. This means actually working together. You are not supposed to
just work separately and then ask for checkoffs separately. One partner is not supposed to just
rush ahead of another partner. You should work together and help one another and have
discussions on the content and assignments. Labs are generally designed to be completed before
the 2.5 hours of the lab session are up. If you do not complete you can finish in office hours with a
relatively minimal penalty (see Lateness and Extension Policy below).

7.1.3) Design Exercises

Along with every set of regular exercises, there will generally be one or two open-ended Design
Exercises, which ask for implementing a neat mini-project will little scaffolding from the staff.
These Design Exercises serve as preparation for the final project and are meant to increase your
confidence in your ability to solve open-ended problems based on specifications we give you.
Over the course of the term, each student can complete as many design exercises as they want.
Each design exercise can be worth up to 3.75% of your final grade, and is graded by succesful
demo and code submission, with partial credit a possibility, however grading is extremely
quantized. In general, design exercises are graded as either 0%, 33%, 66% or 100% based on
performance. Failing to meet specification and/or failing to demonstrate and explain specification
will result in lost points.

Each design exercise must be accompanied by a report. If you do not include a report, nothing will
be graded and you receive a 0 for that assignment. See the design exercise page in a given week
for a template file and further details. 15% of the overall class grade comes from design exercises
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and you can do as many design exercises as you want, but the points gained from them will max
out at 15 (you cannot do 5 design exercises perfectly and get bonus points or something....it will
just cap at 15%). Just to reiterate: students are allowed to do as many design exercises as they
want, though after hitting 15 cumulative points they don't provide more points as per the limits
discussed.

Choose design exercises based on interest. Despite what students say, they do not get "harder"
as the semester moves along. Design Exercises will cease when final projects begin (see
calendar for the submission date for the last design exercise.)

Design Exercises will generally be due two weeks after they are released (so yes, there is overlap
in terms of which ones are "active"). Pay attention to dates on the calendar.

7.1.4) Midterm Exam

The midterm exam will be offered over a twenty-four hour window from 9AM on April 13th, 2021 to
9AM on April 14th, 2021. You will have two hours to take the midterm. You decide when to start by
pressing a button on a midterm page. Once the button is pressed, the clock starts running.
Starting the midterm at any point after 7AM on April 14th, 2021 will result in you having less than
two hours to finish the exam. The exam will cover all materials contained in lectures, online tutor
problems, and labs, up to the date of the exam. Details of the exam and prep material will be
provided several weeks prior to the exam.

If you must miss the exam because of a direct conflict with an MIT class or MIT extracurricular
activity, please contact Joe Steinmeyer ([email protected]) early, and we will figure out a plan for
making up the exam. Other than direct conflicts with other MIT classes and MIT extracurricular
activities, alternative arrangements for exams will only be made for personal or medical issues,
with written support from S^3. Additional accomodations related to the exam should be brought up
early.

7.1.5) Peer Grading and Participation

Throughout the semester you will be working in pairs and teams. You will provide feedback to
your teammates in labs and then in final projects. This feedback as well as
observations/experiences with staff will be used to determine this score. In general, be a good
partner, and your score will be fine. Avoid working in teams, or try to avoid partner work in labs
and this score will be low.

7.2) Lateness and Extensions

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The lateness policy for different components of the class varies so please read below to make
sure you do not apply the set of rules for one type of assignment to a different type.

7.2.1) Regular Exercises

You can continue to work on and submit answers from the regular exercises after they are due.
The grades for late submissions will be multiplied by a lateness factor R that is calculated from n,
the number of minutes late such that: R = max(0.0, min(1.0, 1-
float(n)/(14*24*60))) which corresponds to a linear decay rate of approximately 0.005%
per minute until it hits 0 at two weeks after the due date.

7.2.2) Design Exercises

Design exercises are manually graded and it takes a while to process them on the staff side. As a
result the system just can't tolerate late submissions. Design exercises are nominally due at
11:59pm on the night of their due date. From that point for the next six hours, work can be
submitted but it is multiplied by a lateness factor D such that D= max(0.0, min(1.0, 1-
float(n)/(6*60))) which corresponds to a linear decay rate of approximately 0.27% per
minute, meaning at 6:00AM D is 0. Design Exercises often contain multiple elements that are
turned in separately (code and report and video link, for example). The time of the last submission
of all of these is used in calculating overall submission time. Manage your time wisely. It is the
student's responsibility to submit all necessary material on time. Metadata on a file can be easily
manipulated, so sending us a screenshot showing that a file hasn't been modified won't count as
proof that it was all good before the deadline.

7.2.3) Labs

Labs have two parts: Questions and Checkoffs. Both can be turned in late. Questions (things that
are auto-graded like code or theory questions) have an identical lateness factor as regular
exercises. The score earned will be multiplied by a lateness factor L that is calculated from n, the
number of minutes late such that: L = max(0.0, min(1.0, 1-float(n)/(14*24*60)))
which corresponds to a linear decay rate of approximately 0.005% per minute. Basically after two
weeks (to the minute after the nominal due date) the L is 0. Checkoffs must be done in-person (or
over video chat) and can only be obtained in lab or office hours sessions. The lateness factor for
checkoffs is the same linear decay rate of approximately 0.005% per minute, however it only
accrues during office hours (approximately 13 hours over the span of a week), with the caveat that
after two weeks, the value drops to abruplty to 0.

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7.2.4) Auto-Extensions

To help you manage your obligations such as interviews, travel, or weeks where your schedule is
particularly busyt, each student will be given three automatic four-day extensions. Each of
these extensions applies to all regular assigments that are due in a given calendar week (typically,
two labs and one set of regular exercises, however they do not impact design exercises). The
extensions are automatic: they are granted by an algorithm that is run at the end of the semester.
The algorithm applies the extension to the three spots weeks that minimize your loss of credit due
to lateness. Design exercises are not subject to these one-week extensions because they are not
required in any given week.

IMPORTANT: We repeat: Design Exercises are NOT subject to these auto-

extensions.

7.2.5) Extensions

If you are experiencing personal or medical difficulties that prevent you from completing some of
the work in 6.08, please talk with a dean at S^3, and, with their support, we can offer additional
extensions or alternative arrangements. Without written support from Student Support Services,
we cannot offer any exceptions to the rules outlined on this page.

7.2.6) Do the Math

This penalty is applied to each question or checkoff independently, so questions and checkoffs
that were completed on time will not be penalized, even if other parts of the same lab or exercise
were completed late.

The following table shows some examples of the two-week point factor.

Submitted Max Credit Received

on time 100%

1 hour late 99.7%

8 hours late 97.6%

24 hours late 92.8%

2 days late 85.7%

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If you have any questions about this policy or its impact on your grade, please post on piazza.

8) Responsibilities

8.1) Hardware

We are providing quite a bit of hardware for you to borrow. We expect you to treat the hardware
components with care. The hardware should always be in the carrying/fire-suppressant case
unless using it. Damage to and/or loss of a kit may result in you having to pay to replace it.

You can feel free to use the hardware for your own projects outside of class! Just make sure to
not do anything that prevents use for 6.08. Also, we won't have the resources to help debug
hardware issues that arise if you take the system apart and are unable to put it back together, or if
you try to develop outside the scope of our software stack. There are ways to irreversibly "brick"
components, so please be careful.

You will have to return your 6.08 kit at the end of the semester minus a few specific parts which
you can keep. Failure to return parts in a timely manner will result in a significant letter grade
drop, potential fine, and possibly referral to the Committee on Discipline at MIT.

8.2) Malicious Code

In this class you will be writing code that will run on a public-facing server. Any attempts to write
malicious code to run on the server will result in a course grade of F and immediate referral to the
Committee on Discipline.

The same goes for the course website (the web infrastructure you're reading this on now). Any
attempts to inject malicious code into exercise checkers will result in significant grade deductions
and immediate referral to the Committee on Discipline.

However, if you have found a potential security flaw, please notify Joe Steinmeyer
([email protected]).

8.3) Database Code of Conduct

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Tutor exercises, labs, design exercises, and the final project may make use of shared databases.
Submitting derogatory, inflammatory, or profane content to the database will result in a 0
for that assignment, additional overall grade deductions, and may result in immediate
referral to the Committee on Discipline at MIT. Depending on the severity of the infraction,
dropping the course will not absolve you of consequences. Treat other with respect.

9) Collaboration
The primary goal of the labs and tutor problems is educational. We ask you to
work through
exercises largely on your own because we feel that the experience will cement
the basic technical
ideas and lead you to think about bigger conceptual issues.
It is your responsibility to take
advantage of the opportunity to do this;
working too closely with others will rob you of the chance
to engage deeply
with the material and may lead to poorer understanding and, ultimately, worse
performance on the exams, projects, and beyond.

We encourage students to discuss assignments in this subject with other

students and with the
teaching staff to better understand the concepts.
However, there are limits to what you can do, to
ensure that everybody has a
good individual learning experience.

This page is designed to give you a sense of what kind of interactions are
allowed, and which are
not, when working on 6.08 coursework. The policies
below are in place in order to help with our
primary goal for the exercises
(i.e., that you deepen your understanding of the course materials by
working
through them).

9.1) All Assignments: Sharing of Work

Regardless of the assignment, you should never use results from other students, nor from
the staff, in preparing your solutions to online tutor problems. We will run periodic checks on
submitted code. If your code is taken from other students this year (or previous years), you will
receive a 0 on that assignment and additional administrative action may be taken, including
receiving a failing grade in the class.

In addition, students should never share their solutions (or staff solutions) with other
students, including through public code repositories such as Github.

9.2) Regular Exercises

You are expected to give your best effort and work as far as you can on your
own for every
exercise before asking for help or using other resources. You
should spend at least 10 minutes

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working though each exercise before

consulting any external resources (including online
resources, course staff, or
your fellow students).

If you are still stuck on a problem, you may talk about the question with a
staff member or a fellow
student, but all exchanges of information should be
general in nature. See the sample interactions
below for examples
of what is considered okay, and what is inappropriate.

After having received help on an exercise and reaching a solution, you should
wait a day or so,
and then try to work through the exercise again from scratch
on your own.

9.3) Design Exercises

Design Exercises are to be completed on your own. You can get limited help from staff, however
the intention of these projects is for you to get experience working and designing things on your
own. Sharing of work between students on design exercises will result in scores of 0 for involved
students as well as further administrative action.

9.4) Labs

You will work with a partner in the labs. You and your partner can
equally share all results, code,
and graphs that you develop as a team.

You should work through the entirety of the lab as a team to produce one
result, and each partner
should be prepared to discuss their results with a
staff member during a lab checkoff. A "divide-
and-conquer" approach, where
each partner only works through a portion of the lab, is
unacceptable.

When you have completed an exercise or an experiment, you should share your
results with your
partner. Each partner should enter tutor exercises on their
own account, and by the end of the lab,
each partner should have a copy of any
results, code, and graphs that you developed as a team.

9.5) Midterm

The midterm is to be done completely on your own. Collaboration between students in any form,
including discussion of the exam before the staff allows it (there are makeup exams so don't
assume when you are done, you can talk about it), will result in a 0 on the midterm as well as
further administrative action.

9.6) Final Project

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You will work with a team for the independent design project. You will jointly be responsible for all
deliverables, including demos and presentations.

9.7) Consequences

Incidents of plagiarism will result in a grade of zero on the assignment and,

at the discretion of the
staff, may be reported to the Committee on Discipline
(COD). More information about what
constitutes plagiarism can be found at

http://integrity.mit.edu/

9.8) Sample Interactions

Scenario: Alyssa and Ben sit down to work on a homework set together...

After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help. Alyssa asks Ben
a
leading question that helps him discover a reasonable next step to take when
solving
the problem.

OKAY!

After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help. Alyssa talks Ben
through some of the finer points of op-amps using a separate but related
example
problem. Ben then tries to apply these ideas to the problem he was stuck on.

OKAY!

Alyssa notices that Ben is struggling with a problem, so she gives him her answer
and explains to him how she arrived at it.

NOT OKAY

After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help, and she explains
that it
is easy: you just take equation 3.12 from this book, insert equations
2.5 and 3.2,
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integrate, and you should get the right answer!

NOT OKAY

After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help. Alyssa describes
in
detail the steps she took to solve the problem and Ben follows those steps without
thinking about them.

NOT OKAY

Bob has access to a "bible" of 6.08 answers from previous terms, which he
consults
when he gets stuck.

NOT OKAY

After having made reasonable efforts individually, Alyssa and Ben talk in
general
terms about different approaches to doing a problem. They draw
diagrams on a
whiteboard. When Alyssa discovers a useful Python structure, she
mentions it to
Ben. When Ben makes an observation about voltage dividers, he shares it
with
Alyssa.

OKAY!

As Alyssa and Ben type lines of code, they speak the code aloud to the other
person,
to make sure they both have the right code.

or...

As Alyssa and Ben each solve a circuit, they speak aloud the steps they are
taking,
to make sure they are both following the right steps.

NOT OKAY

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After they have both solved a problem, Alyssa and Ben talk in detail about the
approaches they took, and the relative merits/drawbacks of each.

OKAY!

Alyssa and Ben sit down to work on a homework set together. They decide to
divide
up the problems: Alyssa will work through the even-numbered problems,
and Ben the
odd-numbered ones. When they are done, they will discuss their
work with each-
other so that each has a complete solution.

NOT OKAY

Scenario: Louis had a very busy week. He has already used his two automatic
extensions and
has made almost no progress on the week's problem set. Ben
wants to help.

Ben works near Louis and answers his questions when they come up, after Louis
has
made a reasonable effort.

OKAY!

Ben has been helping Louis or a while, but he needs to get back to his own work.
He
gives his code to Louis, after Louis promises only to look at it when he really has to.

NOT OKAY

10) Staff

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Silvina Hanono
Karl Berggren Stefanie Mueller Wachman
([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
Instructor 38-401
Instructor 32-211
Instructor 24-324

Anthony Pennes Joe Steinmeyer Madison Landry

([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
Instructor 38-575
Instructor 38-583
TA

Simran Pabla Stuti Vishwbhan Ethan Carlson

([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
TA
TA
TA

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Annika Heuser
Josh Verdejo Leon Cheng ([email protected])
([email protected]) TA
([email protected]) TA
TA

Harrison M Allen Ravi Rahman

([email protected]) ([email protected]) Jeana Choi
TA
TA
([email protected]) TA

Allison Htun Kade Bose Varnika Sinha

([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
UTA
LA
LA

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Rafael Olivera-
Cintron Sara Nicholas Ben Kettle
([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
LA
LA
LA

Ethan LaBelle Winnie Zheng Trinity Manuelito

([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
LA
LA
LA

Muhammed Sulema
Stephen Otremba Mussie Demisse S Thaniana
([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
LA
LA
LA

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Malobika Syed Howard DaCosta

([email protected]) Irin Ghosh ([email protected])
LA
([email protected]) LA
LA

Arun
Wongprommoon
Berke Saat ([email protected]) Amadou Bah
([email protected]) LA
LA
([email protected]) LA

Aashini Shah Cami Meja Jordan Wilke

([email protected]) ([email protected]) ([email protected])
LA
LA
LA

You can contact the 6.08 instructors (Joe, Stefanie, Silvina, and Anthony) via 6.08-
[email protected] . You can contact the TAs and UTAs via [email protected] .

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