Do Now

Do Nows start Thursday, August 13.

Today is an instrument day — no Do Now, no Exit Ticket.

Today · Monday, August 10

Agenda

  1. Survey Chunk A — 50 minutes, on paper, in silence
  2. Course overview
  3. Syllabus walkthrough
  4. Who I am · what I’ve built
  5. Ask me anything
Instrument · Classwork grade 1

Survey Chunk A

50:00
50 minutes · press T to start

Answer honestly. Nothing here is graded on being right. Blank answers count — skip if you don’t know.

Fall 2026 · McDonogh 35

Computer Science I

Sean “Mr. Mugg” Muggivan · 10th & 11th Grade

muggsofcompsci.net/cs1

What this class is

You direct machines to build real things.

You write a specification precise enough for an AI to build from, then read, test, and judge what comes back. What we make is real, deployed live at an address anyone can visit.

No prior programming experience assumed.

By the end of the semester, you will
  • Write a specification precise enough to build from.
  • Judge AI output for correctness, completeness, honesty.
  • Explain how a computer stores and processes information.
  • Collect, clean, and interpret real data.
  • Ship a working project to a public address.
  • Say what you did — and what the machine did.
Two places matter
Course site
  • Where content lives.
  • Calendar and activities, day by day.
  • Released daily. Look here first.
Google Classroom
  • Where work goes in.
  • Rubrics and activity outlines only.
  • No new content posted here.

If you are looking for content, look at the site.

What you need
  • A Chromebook — from the classroom cart each day.
  • A notebook or folder kept all semester (one can be provided).
  • A pencil or pen.
  • Your own GitHub and Cloudflare accounts — we make them in class later.

No textbook. Nothing to buy.

Three units · August 10 to December 15
Unit 1
Discover · Access · Harness
Aug 10 – Sep 11
Unit 2
Directing & Verifying
Sep 14 – Oct 8
Unit 3
Building & Shipping
Oct 14 – Dec 15
Unit 1 · Aug 10 – Sep 11

Discover · Access · Harness

  • Discover — what we believe about AI, and what is actually happening in the world.
  • Access — what a machine has to have to run this at all, and what it costs to get past that gate.
  • Harness — where the steering actually lives.

You will write this class’s AI policy — and it will come from your own data.

Unit 2 · Sep 14 – Oct 8

Directing and Verifying

  • Where AI misleads.
  • Prompting versus specifying.
  • Building a check that catches it.

The artifact: a verification pipeline the class built and can defend.

Unit 3 · Oct 14 – Dec 15

Building and Shipping

  • Specify. Generate. Judge.
  • Version control and a real repository.
  • Deployment to a live address.

The artifacts: a specification portfolio and a capstone at a public URL.

Grades — three buckets
40%
Major
Tests, projects, midterm.
40%
Minor
Your weekly work — daily work and classwork.
20%
Exam
Q1: midterm. Q2: average of the final and your specification portfolio.
Grades · Minor — two every week
Daily work
  • Do Now · Exit Ticket.
  • Week’s average is the recorded grade.
Classwork · times 1.5
  • Build logs, spec drafts, verification runs, short writing.
  • Week’s average is the recorded grade.
Your first classwork grade this semester is the signature page at the back of the syllabus.
When grades post
  • Tuesday — the average of last week’s Do Nows and Exit Tickets.
  • Thursday — the average of last week’s classwork.
  • Major grades — posted as I assess your work.
Your signature page is your first classwork grade — it goes into that first Thursday average.
Eight test days
Aug 28
Sep 11
Sep 25
Oct 8
Oct 23
Nov 6
Nov 20
Dec 11

45 minutes review, 45 minutes test. No Do Now or Exit Ticket that day.

Late work

Everything can be made up.

  • Before Thanksgiving: email me to say what you want to make up. Email me again when it’s done — be specific about what you completed.
  • After Thanksgiving: a conference with your household is required.
Absences & make-up
  • The calendar and each day’s content are on the site — missed work can be found without asking.
  • Build days are cumulative. Made up during work time or before/after school.
  • Absent for an assessment: see me the day you return.
Behavior expectations
  • Be here and be working.
  • The Chromebook is the tool — screens stay on task.
  • Talk to each other the way you’d want to be talked to.
  • Be honest — what you did, what the machine did, what you changed.
  • Take care of the equipment. Some of it is mine.
Soft skills · the logic of a working room
  • Show up awake. Being physically there but out of it doesn’t count in any job either.
  • Don’t cause the disruption — and don’t feed one. In a working room, starting it and reacting to it are the same problem.
  • Do the work. Not every task you get will be one you’d choose. Learning to do it anyway is the skill.
  • One person talks, the others listen. Meetings, conversations, hallways — every functional room runs on this.
Phones

In the bin at the door. Out at the door.

Failure to put it in the bin: culture team notified, household called. Not personal, not negotiable.

Restroom
  • Not in the first or last 20 minutes.
  • One at a time, with the pass, five minutes.
  • You are responsible for what you miss.
Household communication

Three planned check-ins.

  • Beginning of the year — to open a line of communication.
  • End of the quarter — while there’s still plenty of time to step it up if needed.
  • End — as we’re turning everything in.

Individual needs may warrant more frequent communications.

Due Friday

The signature page is a
classwork grade.

  • Counts as a classwork grade — times 1.5.
  • Due back to Mr. Mugg by the end of this week.
  • Goes into the Week 1 classwork average that posts Thursday.
  • Not returned means a zero in that average.
Tomorrow · Tuesday, August 11
  • The diagnostic starts — Part 1 of two.
  • Show up ready to work.
  • Return the signature page by Friday.
For those keeping count

Six classwork grades — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

  • Essentially participation grades. Show up, put forth the effort, complete them.
  • These six are entered individually — not averaged. Each one stands.
  • Thursday and Friday work still averages, like every week going forward.
  • Down the road, having those six in the bank matters.

The first thing I check before considering extra credit is that you have all six.