This course was a 100% meh course. It wasn't a horrible experience, but this class was definitely one to just get done and over with. I'm not sure if this was due to the class being 100% online due to COVID, the fact that this was summer with a 10 week course crammed into 6, or if this is how the course is normally, but this course felt very rushed and not very useful.

I technically took the course under Ni Ni, but I believe that both Ni and Arisaka design this course. Never saw or heard from either of the two, except through emails and possibly one video that Ni might have made of herself. In other words, your experience will be based on your TA and your groupmates, which depending on your TA, you might or might not be able to choose.

Since this was summer, the TA didn't really care about this class (I don't blame him, it would suck to teach this class during the summer). That meant we were given plenty of wiggle room when we did stuff wrong in lab, and that he graded leniently, but that also meant that he wasn't very helpful.

The grade was calculated as follows:

25% for assignments: 10% (pre-lab) + 15% (post-lab). Basically free points
10% attendance (-2% for first absence and -4% for the next 2). Also free points
5% survey: 2.5% each for pre-class and post-class. More free points
30% Unit reports (10% for each report). Somewhat difficult and VERY TIME CONSUMING
30% project (split as 15% presentation and 15% report). Somewhat difficult and VERY time consuming

​The grade ranges are:
A+ 95-100.0% A 90-94.99% A- 85-89.99%
B+ 80-84.99% B 75-79.99% B- 70-74.99%
C+ 65-69.99% C 60-64.99% C- 55-59.99%
D+ 50-54.99% D 45-49.99% F 0-44.99%

The labs themselves weren't very good, since they were ONLINE. The TA couldn't help us very much in the experimental setups, and it was hard to collect data since there were no labmates to help you set stuff up. The data analysis was through Python. I had no clue how the data analysis worked; the first three weeks were literally just copy and paste the code the instructors wrote for you, while the last three weeks were more or less copy and paste the code from the first three weeks, but tweak the code slightly. No previous knowledge of physics was really needed until the last project, since they told you what to do, down to the actual code.

Lab reports took a while to write, despite the fact I had 3 really good groupmates. They also came one after the other; I was constantly writing. It appears that the 4AL/4BL series was designed for the semester system. In other words, these people took a 16 week course, squashed it to 10 weeks for the quarter system, and further squashed it into a 6 week course for summer session. Also, instructions were super unclear for the lab reports. I had no clue how we were supposed to format, and in some cases, I HAD NO IDEA WHICH EXPERIMENTS I WAS SUPPOSED TO ANALYZE FOR THE REPORTS!!! Grading also felt arbitrary at times for the lab, despite the use of Gradescope.

The project was time consuming. Basically only one person was able to do the experiment, and we had to cross our fingers that the person did the experiment correctly. It came with a report and a presentation, and we had to video ourselves presenting the slides.

Tl;dr: This class should be an easy A, but you'll still have to work for it. There are lots of free points, but these points take time to obtain. You'll sort-of learn Python and learn how to use this software called Tracker, but that's really it.

The class ended up not being too tough, but it did feel like a lot of work for not too impressive of a result. The pre-labs and post-lab analysis are mostly just about following directions, you barely even need to know any of the physics that are being discussed since they basically hold your hand through everything, including giving you all the Arduino code that you need to work with.

The lab reports are, as advertised, a pain in the butt. They take a good amount of time if you want a good grade, and everything feels really vague in terms of requirements, since there's no clear rubric – you're kind of stuck guessing in the dark for what kind of analysis they want you to make. They do make up a substantial portion of your grade, so make sure that you get a good group, since those reports are enough of a pain with a group working on it, let alone doing it on your own.

Not a big fan of the class, but it's also not exactly Professor Arisaka's fault. It's a good introduction to how to write lab reports, but unfortunately, that's all I really got out of it.

This course was so free, but your experience in this class is entirely dependent on how strict your TA's grading is and how much your lab mates are willing to do work. You don't interact with the professor at all and the lab content is entirely laid out on these 10+ year old slides. Workload-wise, I spent at most an hour every week working on pre-lab/lab reports outside of labs. Also, your group only needs 2 Arduino's (in fact a majority of the labs only required one Arduino). So if your lab group already has two save your money!

Honestly a pretty fun class in my opinion.

This is more a review of my TA than the professor who I never interacted with (except one short email at the beginning of the quarter).

This is a TA-dependent course. The TA grades everything, and since the material for the course (slides and instructions) are super outdated (the slides still say Arduino even though we're using ESP 32), if you have any questions, you better hope your TA can answer it properly. Personally, I had an amazing TA. He was super helpful and kind, and he actually cared about the students. I also had a really great group and we worked really well together.

Generally, I would say this course is pretty easy. They give you step-by-step instructions for almost everything. It just takes a lot of time for a 2-unit course, so definitely start early on assignments in you can.

ON EVERYTHING DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH ROBERT KAO. Everyone BUT the people who took him basically got an A, and many who took it with Kao got an A-. He grades EXPONENTIALLY harder than the other TAs, and even with the "curve" they talk about, you cannot fight that. People would be getting high 90s on their report and Robert Kao would dish out high Cs and low Bs on it, even coming up with things off the rubric to take points off from you. He also has some sort of speech issue, so he will basically not be able to explain anything to you, and you will not understand him, and he will yell at you anyways. Even then, he is extremely unwilling to help out, so even if you do ask for help, he will not really answer your question. DON'T TAKE IT WITH HIM.
Other than that, it is just a lot of busy work. GET A GOOD TEAM and make sure everyone does their cut, unlike my group. Easy A with any other TA, just do the work.

I kind of don’t see the point in this class…? I’d rather they just have a separate python class for us instead… anyways this class is doable but really boring. I blame the course structure for contributing to this boredom. The slides are very disorganized, and everything (due dates etc) are all still from the Spring quarter! Our lab notebook still says 2023-2024, although we’re in the 2024-2025 school year already!

This class is also heavily dependent on your TA; my TA was nice enough but also not really interested in teaching our class, so we’d often get later due dates on the assignments because he forgot to open them before it was due. Some TAs I’ve heard are really strict on attendance and lab reports. Switch around sections if you feel like your TA is strict on the first few labs. Your lab group also contributes to your experience in the class; if everyone in your group knows what’s going on, you can easily finish the lab 30 minutes early. Some times post labs are due as a group, and the unit 2/3 reports are also done as a group. I’ve figured some people cannot write scientific reports… but I’ll refrain from complaining too much.

tl;dr, switch sections if TA isn’t lenient, switch groups if group members are unhelpful (unless you wanna carry), be prepared for confusion on the instructions, and be prepared for some work.

This class is abysmal. This is not a physics class, this is a computer science class. Arduino IDE is impossible to deal with on an Apple product. You will be coding profusely in Python, and likely required to write your own Arduino code for the final project depending on what your group chooses to do. This class is completely guided by slides that are outdated (dates are from previous quarters), poorly structured, and are completely centered around Windows UI, not Mac. I understand that it is an expectation of engineering majors to use Windows and never Mac, but this is a physics class. Likewise, your TA makes or breaks this class. If there is a tech issue...better hope your TA has experience. Need something for your final project...better hope your TA knows where everything is in the lab.

Easily the most miserable class on campus. And it doesn't take much to refine it to make it easy, the professor just refuses to do so.

4AL is just a bunch of busy work. The class is relatively easy as there are no exams and just lab reports and group projects. It's really important to have a good team that fairly splits up the work. Overall, as long as you complete the work and follow the rubric, you should easily end up with an "A."

I believe 4AL is a great course to experience writing research papers and working with data. My TA (Elias) was super nice and gave us lots of help with programming. I was lucky to have great group members too. The workload was pretty manageable (one post lab and pre lab per week), and three group projects. Most people get A and A+.

However, if you don't have much programming experience, the learning curve for python in this class is pretty steep. Most of the time, you have to rely on the person in the group that has prior programming experience (which was me in my group).