Lab Participation
The mark for the work done in the room, bringing progress to the weekly labs, giving honest feedback in the crits, and being able to defend your choices out loud rather than only in a screenshot.
Due: 28 May 2027 · Weight: 15%
A rice is a solitary thing to build and a social thing to defend. This component marks the second half: the semester of labs and crits that turns a private configuration into something you can stand behind in front of other people.
The brief#
Turn up, show your work, and take part in the room.
The labs are where the rice is made legible to someone other than you. Bringing work in progress, reading other people’s desktops back to them, and answering the questions a screenshot cannot field are all skills the final gallery assumes you already have. This mark is for practising them every week rather than saving them for the end.
What you submit#
Nothing is uploaded for this component. It is assessed on presence and contribution across the twelve labs, and it culminates in the week twelve gallery, where the term’s participation is read as a whole. Consistent, honest engagement is what earns the marks; a single polished appearance does not.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- attend the weekly labs and arrive with something to show, however rough
- give specific, useful feedback in the crits rather than polite noise
- defend your own choices when the room asks, and revise them when the room is right
How it is marked
Participation is judged across the whole semester, not on a single day. The marker looks at whether you brought work to the labs to be seen while it was still unfinished, engaged with your peers' crits with something more useful than politeness, and could talk about your decisions and theirs when the room asked. Consistency over the twelve weeks counts for more than one strong showing at the gallery.