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Course Description

6.02 introduces several concepts in electrical engineering and computer science using digital communication systems as the vehicle. The three parts of the course cover three corresponding layers of abstraction relevant to the system:

  • Bits: binary representation, compression (source coding), and error correction (channel coding) for messages transmitted across a noisy link
  • Signals: signal representation of binary messages for transmission across a shared physical channel subject to distortion and noise;
  • Packets: efficient, reliable communication across networks made up of multiple links.
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Prerequisites: 6.0001
Units: 4-4-4
Requirements satisfied: Institute Lab

Schedule

Lectures: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2-3pm in 4-370, Dr. Katrina LaCurts
Recitations: Tuesdays and Thursdays, at the times below:

Section Time Location Instructor
1 10:00am 34-304 Olivia Brode-Roger
2 11:00am 34-304 Olivia Brode-Roger
3 1:00pm 34-304 Tomás Palacios
4 2:00pm 34-301 Tomás Palacios

Staff

Role Name Email
Lecturer Katrina LaCurts
Recitation
Instructors
Olivia Brode-Roger
Tomás Palacios
TAs
Hannah Diehl
Lara Shonkwiler
Crystal Wang
LAs Brin Harper
Matisse Peppet
Luis Torres
Sreya Vangara

Grading

Your grade in 6.02 will be the weighted average of the following component grades:

Quiz 116%
Quiz 216%
Quiz 316%
Ten PSets47% (5% each, except PS0, which is 2%)
Nanoquizzes3%
Participation in recitations and lecture2%

To see your scores, use the Gradebook.

Equal Access

The staff of 6.02 is committed to the principle of equal access. We encourage you to meet with Dr. LaCurts to discuss your disability-related needs, including accommodations which you may need in order to fully access this course.

Due Dates, Lateness Penalties, and Extension Policy

Due dates for all PSets and Quizzes are posted on the course calendar. You may use up to five extension days (in total) over the course of the semester for the ten PSets, with a maximum of two days on any one PSet.

To claim an extension day, click here (this link is also available from the Assignments page). For any other late PSets, our policy is as follows:

  • If your PSet is no more than one week late, your score will be multiplied by 0.5 (i.e., you will receive no more than 50% of the possible points).
  • If your PSet is more than one week late, your score will be multiplied by .25 (i.e., you will receive no more than 25% of the possible points).
Students with medical or personal difficulties should see Student Support Services for help, and then email Dr. LaCurts. We will work with you and S3 to come up with a plan for making up late work without penalty.

For any circumstance other than medical or personal difficulties (e.g., interview trips, sporting events, performances), please use your five extension days.

Grade Components

Problem Sets

There are ten problem sets (PSets), posted more-or-less weekly on the web site, typically on Tuesdays. Each PSet is due on the date specified; usually that's 11:45pm on Thursday of the following week. Solutions will be available a few days after the due date, once you have submitted the assignment online. See the course calendar for the specific dates.

Each PSet is divided between analysis/theory problems and tasks that involve exploring communication concepts using Python. You will have to write some of your own code, so be sure to start early and leave enough time to debug your implementation before the due date.

After your PSet has been graded, your score and any comments from the grader can be viewed online by browsing the PSet. If you have any questions or concerns about the grading, contact your TA.

Working through the PSets (and other practice problems we provide) is an essential component in learning the material. They are also helpful to test your understanding of what we teach and to prepare for the quizzes. We expect you to give a good-faith effort on every PSet. If you miss a single PSet, you'll receive a 0% for that PSet; missing additional PSets will result in an Incomplete, or worse, in the class.

Checkoff Interviews

There will be checkoff interviews for most PSets (usually on Monday or Tuesday), lasting 10 minutes on average, which you must complete with your assigned TA/LA at your scheduled time. The goal of the checkoffs is for us to gauge how well you understand the mechanics behind the PSet, and to give you an explicit opportunity to ask about anything that you found confusing. With checkoff interviews, we're able to catch any major misunderstandings quickly, rather than after you've taken a quiz.

If you miss, or need to miss, your assigned checkoff, you may reschedule it as long as at least one of the following is true:

  • You’re using your “free pass”. Each student gets to reschedule one missed checkoff per semester, no questions asked.
  • You have an extension on your pset or checkoff beyond your assigned checkoff time, from S3, Katrina, or your TA/LA.
  • You are taking a late penalty on your problem set and won't have it submitted before your assigned checkoff time.
  • You contact your TA/LA 24 hours in advance of your assigned checkoff time.

In all of these cases, you can complete the checkoff by either showing up at office hours that week, or attending an empty slot in any TA/LA's checkoff schedule (link soon). If you choose to attend an empty slot, email the TA/LA holding the checkoff to tell them what time you will be coming in and cc your assigned TA/LA. Assuming you complete the checkoff within the week, you won’t incur any penalties.

If you don’t reschedule your missed checkoff, your full problem set will incur the standard late penalty. Once you've used your "free-pass" for a missed checkoff, for the future make sure to tell your TA/LA if you need to reschedule or talk to S3 if an immediate problem comes up.

If you show up more than 5 minutes late to your checkoff, we likely won't have enough time to finish, so you may have to reschedule, but we will count this as an excused reschedule as long as you show up in your 10-minute block. Please be respectful of the course staff's time and don't make lateness a habit.

If you don't know where your situation falls in this policy or need any accommodations, please reach out to any staff member; we'll be happy to help.

Quizzes

There are three quizzes: two during the semester and one during finals week (see calendar for exact dates). The first two quizzes will be given in the evening (7:30pm-9:30pm). The third quiz 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.

Quizzes will cover materials from lectures, recitations, and problem sets. The first quiz will cover the "bits" module, the second the "signals" module, and the third the "packets" module.

Nanoquizzes

After each lecture, we will post a short "nanoquiz". The goal of these exercises is education, not assessment. They do count nominally towards your grade, but more importantly you can use them as a quick check to see whether you understood the relevant lecture.

Nanoquizzes are designed to be short. If you paid attention in lecture, they should take no more than a few minutes. They are not designed to be comprehensive. They test an important concept from lecture, but not every concept from lecture.

Because each individual quiz is such a small percentage of your grade, we will not offer extensions on these assignments, except in the cases where students have documented support from Student Support Services.

Participation

We expect you to attend all lectures and recitations, unless there are pressing or unforeseen conflicts. Conflicts that are persistent (e.g., registering for another class at the same time and "splitting" attendance between them) are not excused. The things we teach in lecture and recitation are fair game on quizzes and problem sets.

We expect you to be sufficiently engaged with the course staff (at least your recitation instructor and TA) to enable them to assign you a small portion (2%) of your overall grade for participation. This participation score can make a significant difference if you end up on the border between two letter grades.

We also expect you to be sufficiently engaged with the course as a whole, and familiar with all policies. To that end, once you have finished reading this syllabus, email Dr. LaCurts your favorite .gif.

Regrade Policy

If you find a grading error in an assignment, please contact your TA. We will review your concern and then regrade the entire assignment to try to eliminate the error that you identified as well as any other grading errors.

Collaboration Policy

We encourage you to work with other students in the class, as well as the course staff, to learn the underlying material. However, the work you hand in must be your own. In particular, you must not copy another person's solution, code, or other work. Someone telling you the solution to a problem is also not acceptable. Copying another person's work or allowing your work to be copied by others is a serious academic offense and will be treated as such. We will spot-check your submissions using a software utility, as well as manually, for cheating, so please don't tempt fate by submitting someone else's work as your own; it will save us all a lot of grief.

A general rule of thumb: if you are showing your code to a classmate, then you are violating our collaboration policy.

Discussing high-level concepts—how does modulation work? How does a Viterbi decoder determine the final message?—or generic Python syntax—how do I create a dictionary?— is fine. If you aren't sure whether a particular situation violates our collaboration policy, post a private question on Piazza; we'll be happy to help.

Incidents of plagiarism will result in a grade of zero on the assignment and, at the discretion of the staff, further disciplinary action may be pursued. More information about what constitutes plagiarism can be found here.

The primary goal of the labs is educational. We ask you to work through these problems because 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.