NOTE: This page is for students who did not take AP50a in the Fall of 2021. If you took AP50a in the Fall of 2021, please jump to this page.

Once you decide to enroll in AP50a, please complete the following before joining your first class session on Sep 2. You should allocate about an hour and a half to complete these preliminaries.

To hear a bit about me, click the video at right. The video contains your first assignment — to make a short video about you!
Familiarize yourself with the following three platforms (details below):
- Slack (communication) — join the workspace
- Perusall (collaborative annotation) — watch the short introductory video
- Learning Catalytics (polling) — register for an account and complete 2 questionnaires
And, finally, get ready to build a hopper (details below)!

Slack

To facilitate communication between everyone in the course, we will use a collaboration workspace on Slack. This will permit you to connect with your team members and reach out to members of the teaching team. You can join and reach Slack as follows.

Locate Slack in the left-hand navigation bar. So you don't lose your place in the module and these instructions, right-click (Windows) or ctrl-click (Mac) to open the Slack page of the Canvas site in a new tab.
Click "Join the Slack Workspace" and open it in your browser or in the app.
In the Slack workspace, the left hand navigation lists the different "channels" in which conversations take place. By default, you will be looking at the "#general" channel in the main window. This channel includes everyone who is a member of the workspace.
Post an informal introduction of yourself and an emoji (or more than one) that expresses your feelings about joining AP50. Feel free to react (kindly and respectfully, please) to the posts of others.
Join the #office-hours and #i-need-help channels so you are ready to get help when you need it during the semester.
You can Direct Message people or join a channel to discuss a particular aspect of the course. To contact (or mention) someone from the teaching team, type "@T-" and a list of teaching team members will show up. Feel free to message me (@T-Eric) any time — try it now! If you need to contact me, Slack works much better than email.

Perusall

Because there are no lectures in this course, each module starts with a reading assignment. The reading (sometimes supplemented with video) will take place in a social learning platform called Perusall — you will be able to interact with others and help address each others difficulties through annotations and chat. There is no cost for the use of Perusall or the reading materials. Please start familiarizing yourself with Perusall by watching this short introductory video in the Perusall platform.

Learning Catalytics

We will use an electronic response system called Learning Catalytics. To access the system, register for a student account on Learning Catalytics using the access code HSCLCY-BAZOO-VOUCH-SLEET-FIERI-BLASE (at no cost). This code will work for an entire year so you can use it in both AP50a and AP50b, as well as any other courses that uses Learning Catalytics. Once you have registered for an account, please join Session 207011888 to complete the first of two background questionnaires. Once you have completed that first session, any other sessions will show automatically once you log in to Learning Catalytics. A second questionnaire with Session ID 86115708 should now be visible. The first one should take you about 45 minutes, the second one 5 minutes. By completing these two questionnaires, you will help us deliver a course that is better tailored to your abilities and you will be all set to use Learning Catalytics as a learning tool in this course. In addition if you complete both questionnaires as well as the two questionnaires we will run at the end of the semester, you will earn one virtual token which you can use to upgrade a score and increase your grade.

Get ready to build a hopper!

To give you a taste what it feels like to work on a project together, you will carry out a "micro project" during the organizational section on Jan 26: build something that hops — something that replicates biologically-inspired movement, like the hopping of an insect, frog, or kangaroo (this activity is derived from the Design Nature course at Olin College). Please do the preparatory work below before joining section on Jan 26; it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. During section you will share your preparatory work with others in your team and use the insights you've gained to improve your hopper and come up with a design that combines the best ideas from your team.

As we can't send you a kit for this activity this early in the course, we'll use common household items. (You will get kits for other activities and for the projects later in the semester!). We promise that you can make a successful hopper with any small Amazon-type box and a few rubber bands of any size and shape, so don't worry too much about the details.

In preparation for the section on Jan 25, gather:

- Cardboard (preferably corrugated and cut into 2"x4" rectangles)
- Rubber bands (or springs, if you happen to have them)
- Scotch tape (or equivalent)
- Scissors (for cutting and scoring cardboard)
- Toothpicks (or equivalent, for poking holes in cardboard)

Take a look at this handout, which provides tips on working with cardboard to make hopping devices, and practice using your materials to make something that hops. Have your hopper and materials handy during the class section on January 26!

Click Next below to read about your first class section.