- All labs except for labs 2, 4, 6, and 8 will be auto-graded. Each auto-graded lab, starting from next week, will be due on Friday, 11:59 PM for full credit. We have decided to provide extended deadlines for all auto-graded labs. Specifically, the timeline will look as follows:

100% credit available if submitted by Friday, 11:59 PM
80% credit available if submitted by Saturday, 11:59 PM
50% credit available if submitted by Sunday, 11:59 PM
0% credit available if submitted any time after Sunday, 11:59 PM

For example, if you did not make a submission by Friday, but you submitted the lab on Saturday, the maximum grade you could possibly get on that lab is 80%. Your grade will be available shortly after the deadline under the _grade branch in your repository which will appear after the first deadline of the course.

- Your lowest lab grade will be dropped, excluding labs 8, 12, and 13.

- There will be extra credit opportunities throughout the course that will help boost the lab portion of your grade.

- For some labs, compatibility tests will be ran for a couple nights before the lab due date. These tests will only serve to inform you whether your lab submission was able to correctly interface with the auto-grader and that your design/code runs. It is not a proof of correctness.

Due to all of the above policies, the lab grading itself will be strict.

How strict will lab grading be and why?

One thing you will hopefully get to internalize within this course is that computers are dumb: they will do exactly what they are told to do and it is our responsibility as humans to verify that they work as we expect them to. This means that even the smallest mistakes made by us, humans, could render an entire design/program useless! Throughout history, computer engineers have committed "tiny" mistakes that led to extreme consequences. One of my favorite examples for demonstrating this is the Intel Pentium floating point bug.

Fortunately in ECE 120, bugs that can render your entire lab incorrect are easily preventable, if you thoroughly test your design/program (this will be more relevant for lab 2 and onwards) and carefully read the lab instructions. However, in the case you submitted a lab with such bug, your best bet will be to resubmit the corrected lab by the next deadline with the associated penalty. No exceptions will be provided. This is to severely minimize any subjectivity within your grades and have them better reflect your work and understanding of the labs in order to maximize fairness among students.
I got 0 on the lab and don't know why! What do I do?
1. You want to test your latest submission before the deadline and make sure that it compiles and runs properly.
2. You want to make sure that you have carefully followed the instructions of the lab by re-reading the lab documentation. You may have named a file incorrectly, pushed incorrect files, or pushed the correct files to a wrong location in your repository.
3. Check the report that the auto-grader provided and see whether you can figure out what the issue is.
4. Ask staff on campuswire or discord in the case that you were unable to figure out what the issue is after following the first 3 steps.
Only after you have carefully read this announcement and made sure to follow the 4 steps mentioned above, and you think that there is an inaccuracy within your grading, you must request a regrade by emailing at yehyas2@illinois.edu and CC'ing Professor Bhowmik at ubhowmik@illinois.edu with "[ECE 120] Lab X regrade request (ALY)" in the title, where X represents the lab's number and Y represents the section you are in (1,2,3). This last step is important because I have a specific folder for ECE120-related emails so I may not see your email if you do not use that format!