Didn't go to CMU, but I did take cs61 at Harvard extension last year (https://cs61.seas.harvard.edu/site/2018/). It too had some self grading assignments (time bomb). Thoroughly enjoyed that class.
CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
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Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#12I remember when my University copied a couple of these, I decided to go the full mile on the one where you exploit buffer overflow. I got myself a remote connection via execve, and was going to mess around, but soon realized I could also see and edit others' scores which could get me in significant trouble, so I had to make one log-scrubbing attack then stop. I'm surprised they never fixed the hole by containerizing it or something.
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#13What are the contents of the files behind the wall? Can anyone share those files?
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#14Former student and TA here. There is so much great stuff in this class and its assignments! Couple of highlights: - Data lab formally verifies all of the submissions and gives you an exact failing test case if the submission isn't correct. - Malloc lab is run competitively. You don't need to compete to do well, but you do if you want to do great. And the competition drives students to great feats. I know people who r…
> Turnaround time for exams was sub-one-day.
What's the current status on accurately grading mistakes? From the exams I remember (Fall 2015), the exams autograded perfect answers well, but gave similar marks to nearly correct, but still wrong answers as complete gibberish. I felt that unless I had the answers exactly correct, it was hard to demonstrate my knowledge of the topic.
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#15Ah 15-213, these labs were the most well designed assignments I ever had in college.
If I recall correctly, I believe the computer architecture course at USC (ducks) also uses these exact CS:APP labs. I loved them, it was fun realizing partway through some of the earlier labs which type of data structure they were having you walk. Decent prep for OS, if you really dig into the malloc lab.
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#16Former student and TA here. There is so much great stuff in this class and its assignments! Couple of highlights: - Data lab formally verifies all of the submissions and gives you an exact failing test case if the submission isn't correct. - Malloc lab is run competitively. You don't need to compete to do well, but you do if you want to do great. And the competition drives students to great feats. I know people who r…
> Turnaround time for exams was sub-one-day. What's the current status on accurately grading mistakes? From the exams I remember (Fall 2015), the exams autograded perfect answers well, but gave similar marks to nearly correct, but still wrong answers as complete gibberish. I felt that unless I had the answers exactly correct, it was hard to demonstrate my knowledge of the topic.
Now there is a regrade system that lets you ask for more partial credit if you feel that the autograder was too harsh. That being said, its still relatively easy to get a lot of points off for a small mistake :(. You definitely have to be really careful during 213 exams but thankfully there's plenty of time to redo all the questions 2 or 3 times.
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#17These would have been fun!
For the bomb one, are there protections for taking the binary and running it in an isolated environment?
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#18 My professor for my senior operating systems class who was a CMU PhD grad, gave us these assignments (with the permission of CMU). They were some of the most important learning experiences in my undergraduate career.
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#19These would have been fun! For the bomb one, are there protections for taking the binary and running it in an isolated environment?
> For the bomb one, are there protections for taking the binary and running it in an isolated environment?
Running it through a debugger is easy enough that this would be sorta unnecessary
Re: CMU Computer Systems: Self-Grading Lab Assignments (2018)
#20Former student and TA here. There is so much great stuff in this class and its assignments! Couple of highlights: - Data lab formally verifies all of the submissions and gives you an exact failing test case if the submission isn't correct. - Malloc lab is run competitively. You don't need to compete to do well, but you do if you want to do great. And the competition drives students to great feats. I know people who r…
University is fundamentally a social thing, both between peers and between students and knowledgeable people like the professor.
>- The automated grading of assignments meant that the class could scale to many hundreds of students
When you have things like this why are we paying so much?