Grades will be determined by performance on written and coding assignments, as well as participation in discussions in-class and on the course webpage. You will also be periodically asked to do readings from our course notes or from relevant papers, and provide short (2-3 sentence) written summaries. There will be seven assignments (with deadlines outlined on the course calendar) comprised of both a written and coding portion. To give you a bit of flexibility during the semester, you can skip one of the assignments with no penalty. However, you must complete the first two assignments, which are easier than the rest, and also are required knowledge for the remaining assignments. Also, you are free to complete all seven assignments for up to 16.67% extra credit. The last assignment (A6) will be given in lieu of a final. The grade breakdown is as follows:
- Assignments – 90% (pick 6 out of 7)
- (16.67%) A0: Combinatorial Surfaces (can’t skip this one!)
- (16.67%) A1: Exterior Calculus (can’t skip this one!)
- (16.67%) A2: Discrete Curvature
- (16.67%) A3: The Laplacian
- (16.67%) A4: Surface Parameterization
- (16.67%) A5: Geodesic Distance
- (16.67%) A6: Direction Field Design
- Participation – 10%
- (3%) – in-class/web participation
- (7%) – reading summaries/questions
Collaboration policy: You are are strongly encouraged to discuss all course material with your peers, including the written and coding assignments. You are especially encouraged to seek out new friends from other disciplines (CS, math, engineering, etc.) whose experience might complement your own. However, your final work must be your own, written up in your own words and/or implemented by yourself. For instance, if you work collaboratively (e.g., on a whiteboard) you should erase it and go write up your own solution by yourself somewhere. You should not show other students your final writeup, or your final code, nor they should not look at it.
Cheating policy: Don’t cheat. If you get caught cheating on anything (e.g., even one assignment), you will get a zero for the whole course. This has happened in the past, and it’s really sad for everyone. Duplicate work turned in by two different students will be considered cheating by both students (e.g., even if student A simply found student B’s printout on the printer and maliciously copied it). So, be diligent about keeping your answers private!