Information

Students work in large teams to engineer systems that solve important problems in society. Leverages technical EECS background to make design choices and partition the system with an emphasis on the societal, ethical, and legal implications of those choices. Explores case studies of existing engineered systems to understand implications of different system architectures. Teams design and build functional prototypes of useful systems. Grading is based on individual- and team-based elements. Enrollment may be limited due to staffing and space requirements.

Prerequisites: In steady state this class will have strict pre-reqs of all three 6-2 core classes: 6.200[6.002], 6.310[6.302], and 6.191[6.004]. For this first offering, we are relaxing pre-requisites: 6.200 and 6.191, or permission of instructors.

Units: 2-3-7

Lectures: Tuesday, Thursday 10a - 11a in 36-155.

Labs: Friday 11a - 2p, in the EECS Engineering Design Studio (EDS, 38-501).

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. Our Piazza link is here as well as in the site top menu.

Slack: We have a class slack Workspace. In addition, each project team will have a channel dedicated to them.

Your overall grade is based on the following breakdown:

• Psets: 20%
• Lab checkoffs: 20%
• Peer review: 10%
• Concept reviews: 15%
• Alpha prototype review: 15%
• Beta prototype review: 20%

Some of these grade components are individual, and some are team-based.

Given that this is the first offering of the class, and there may be some hiccups, which we will take into account when assigning final grades.

PSets

Problem sets will generally be released on Fridays and due the following Thursday morning. Some problems may have different due dates, which will be listed. Problem sets will have a mixture of individual work, extensions of lab activities, and team project work.

Labs

We will have weekly labs. Some labs, especially in the beginning, will be focused on the guided MILO project. Starting on week 2, all labs will include a team meeting. Some labs will be free time for team work and consulting with staff, especially near presentation dates. Many of the guided labs will include checkoffs, which will be done individually, pairs, or as teams (this will be marked).

Final Project etc...

This is the main focus of the class, and will have a dedicated set of pages.

Exams

There will be no exams in 6.900. Enjoy your evening.

Late Submissions

• Some components of the labs and psets are due at the due date. However they can be turned in late (or the checkoff obtained late) with an increasing point penalty based on lateness. Every day late, they lose 20%. A few additional details on this:
  • Lateness is calculated to the day (minutes and seconds do not come into play). So if a pset is due Thursday at 9a and you do not finish it then, if you turn it in at any point on Friday, it is worth 80%
  • Lateness is applied to each part of the lab or pset individually. For hypothetical Lab N, if you get Checkoffs 1 and 2 done on time, and get Checkoff 3 done one day late, the lateness is only applied to Checkoff 3.
  • Saturday and Sunday do not count in calculation of lateness.

If you feel you need an extension on a lab or pset, email me (voldman@mit.edu) >= 24 hours in advance of the lab or pset deadline. Let me know what's going on / how the lab or pset is coming / a general reason why you need some extra time, and as long as you get to me before that 24-hour mark you can generally assume we will grant you a 24 hour extension on the lab or pset.

If you have any extenuating circumstances that warrant an extension please go to S^3 and then reach out to Joel.

This is a team-based design class. Most of your work will be with your team, even if the work is individual. But some work will be individual, especially on some of the problem sets. Again, we'll try to be clear which are team activities and which are individual activities. If you are unsure, ask before collaborating. Not after.