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 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.

Things seemed pretty organized overall considering the online format. Pray for a good lab group. I had Chau Dao as a TA, he was great: super helpful and pretty relaxed about things.

Holy crap I might have had more work for this 2 unit class than for any of my others. They load on the amount of stuff you have to do for no reason. Every lab you have to have like 12 tabs open, the teacher and TAs are super disorganized, and since we were the first section they would find problems with the experiment and we would have to redo stuff all the time. It was a very heavy workload for no reason. Make sure you rely on your group-mates. You're all in it together and just get the work done on time. It's not harsh grading. Just a ton of busy work. Be prepared.

Took virtually due to COVID.

The course was hastily moved online and it showed. Labs were being edited and made as the quarter continued and instructions for reports were vague. That being said, the labs were decent. Not super interesting and had a somewhat heavy workload considering this class is only 2 units. I can imagine this class would be more interesting and easier if it were in person, as TAs couldn't exactly troubleshoot your circuits over zoom. Also, if you have a bad lab group, you won't have a good time, especially during the final lab/presentation.

This was a great class. It will honestly probably be better when it's not online, but I was honestly impressed with how smooth it was even with Zoom calls instead of in person. The group labs are pretty great and would be even better if it could happen in person, but overall a great course. There are some cool labs and you learn basic Python programming for representing data and manipulating it, which is a great skill. You also learn some Arduino, which is super fun. Overall, great class, take it. It is a little bit of work for being a 2 unit class though, so be aware of that. Occasionally it can be time consuming.

It's a lot easier than the old version, from what I've heard. However, be prepared to spend some significant time (approaching 4-unit class) on prelabs and lab reports.

Warning:
Also, the lab reports are graded quite harshly; 3/5 is given for MEETING all of the requirements. You need to go "above and beyond" (which was not very clear how) to get a full score. So you will get a B unless you go "above and beyond."

Glad I took the redesigned version of this class. Its not very hard and the prelabs/labs every week were not difficult. The lab reports (2 during the quarter and one final one due finals week) were somewhat time consuming but it wasn't hard to get all/most of the points as long as you follow the directions. The final was an experiment that you and your lab partners came up with (lab partner were assigned, luckily mine came in clutch). It wasn't too bad but presenting it kind of sucked because a TA from a different section came in and grilled everyone during the Q&A portion which was painful to watch. The material wasn't really super interesting (Arduino, Python data fitting) but this definitely wasn't a bad class now that its redesigned.

I'm happy I waited until they redesigned 4AL to take it, because this new version of it is not too bad. I personally did not find it very enjoyable, but it is also not very hard. Pre labs and lab reports both revolve around Python, but they explain pretty much just give us the code we need to complete these assignments; you basically just look at how they used the code for their example and apply it to what you are doing. In fact, for the pre labs they give skeleton code and you just click through it and add exactly what they say to add in comments.
The annoying parts of this class are the bigger lab reports. There are 3 of these total, including one that was due at 11 PM on the last day of the quarter. They take a while to do and it seems somewhat arbitrary where points are taken off. Granted, you will probably get most of the points by following the instructions, and you can get half the points you missed back if you fix the errors and resubmit it.
The final part of the class consists of an experiment and presentation that your group comes up with (you are assigned your group members BTW, rather than getting to choose your own). All in all, this class is not too bad.

This is for 4BL, but they’ve redesigned both labs so I think this works for either. I took 4AL before the redesign and I definitely think they’ve made it easier. The reports are now powerpoint slides where you just fill in the information. They use a lot of Python, which I found confusing because there was very little instruction (but you end up just copy-pasting and submitting so it’s not a big deal). There are small weekly assignments and then two bigger reports worth more of your grade. There’s also a final group project where you have a lot of freedom. This quarter I think they were very lenient on grading because it’s all new but I think that’ll change in the future. They were pretty strict on grading the lab reports which was strange because the instructions were very relaxed. I definitely recommend asking your TA for lots of help on what exactly they’re looking for. They want you to stay for the whole lab period but won’t really stop you from leaving if you’ve finished. I would start your lab report during the lab period because some things pop up in the report that you weren’t expecting and it’s annoying to try to find that data again. That being said, write down and record everything! The instructions aren’t super clear on what to record so record it all to be safe.