Labs
Thursday 14:05 to 14:55, every teaching week: fifty minutes to try the week's protocol in the room, with a stopwatch and a notebook.
The lecture argues something on Tuesday. The lab checks it on Thursday, 14:05 to 14:55 in Room 2.14, Applied Interaction Building. Every lab has a run sheet with timings, says what to bring, and ends with lines you can check yourself against before you leave the room. The timetable has the dates, and the two weeks that don't stay in the room.
Corridor Capture
Go out into the building and log real openings: the words, the reply, and whether the exchange closed or branched.
Week 1, 25 February 2027
Observation Without Diagnosis
Twenty minutes observing a public space, then a partner reads your notes looking for any sentence that diagnoses instead of describing.
Week 2, 4 March 2027
Envelope Relay
In threes: one person writes a payload, one wraps it in an envelope, one decodes it. Score what arrives, then try sending it bare.
Week 3, 11 March 2027
Stopwatch Lab
The same “yes”, said after different delays. Measure how willing it sounds, then find out whether a hold token rescues a slow one.
Week 4, 18 March 2027
Repair Drills
Planted misunderstandings to practise specific repair initiators, then low-stakes apologies built from the template, with a partner checking which parts arrived.
Week 5, 25 March 2027
Ledger Exchange
Fill in yesterday’s ledger, then compare what the same subroutine costs different people in the room. Nobody’s price is the correct one.
Week 6, 1 April 2027
Runbook Workshop
A quiet lab to write your runbook, save messages, and plan the break. A reduced version is available when writing is hard today.
Week 7, 8 April 2027
Conformance Tests for Email
Write three institutional messages, then test the tutor email against seven clauses and the other two against their own requirements.
Week 8, 29 April 2027
The Reciprocity Ladder
Meet your Interoperation Report partner. Climb three rungs of question cards together, pass on any card without explaining, and draft the first clauses of your shared protocol.
Week 9, 6 May 2027
Need Without the Label
Draft partial disclosures for two audiences using fictional character cards, practise receiving one, then test your partnership’s draft protocol against a week of real use.
Week 10, 13 May 2027
The Negotiation, Round Three
Finish your bilateral protocol, compare your accounts of the negotiation, and audit which course terms you used outside class.
Week 11, 20 May 2027
Capstone Clinic
Choose your capstone route, get a peer ethics review of any field experiment parameter, and leave with a first paragraph written.
Week 12, 27 May 2027