General Points

1) Next week's tutorial is the last one before the first experiment is due. Please make sure you have enough work uploaded so that we can have a proper chat about your project. Last week was disappointing because very few of you had two drafts to show me.

2) If you have come straight from school you will be used to the 'bell curve' way of marking, where you had to compete with your classmates to get the best marks. We're not marking to a bell curve now. You can all get very good marks if you all have very good work. This means that it benefits all of you to share your knowledge and help each other.

3) Related to point 2), there are 10 marks allocated to participation. Simply turning up each week won't automatically get you these marks. They will be heavily based on how willing you are to help, and to provide and seek each other's feedback. They will also be based on your participation on the course forum, at both asking and answering questions. I therefore strongly encourage you to be active on this forum.

4) I realise that if you're reading this, it means this point does not apply to you - but - please follow both Russell's blog and mine. This blog is the way we can communicate throughout the week.

5) If anything about what we're doing is unclear (e.g. a few of you had difficulty with some staircase sections) please use the time during the week to do some research (e.g. your final stair sections should be genuine, competent attempts at architectural drawings). Please be critical of your own work. Your final submissions should consist of components that are each the best that you can make them.

6) Remember, I will never mark your notebook, or anything that you do that is not uploaded to your blog. You should keep the drawings that you upload neat, but you need not keep your notebook neat....you can have many goes at getting something right.

7) If you're writing text, please read over it before you publish. If your first language isn't English, don't be shy about asking someone else to read over it. There is a spell check option (the ABC with a tick).

8) You can and should upload things to your blog that are not necessarily part of your submissions if you think they are interesting and relevant in some way. And you should be proud of your blog, it will showcase a semester of hard work.

9) The marking schedule for Experiment 1 is here. Please print a copy and use it to evaluate your project, to see where you may fall short. Please also print a spare copy and bring it to the next studio where you will use it to evaluate another student's work.

Cheers, good luck for next week.