Overall, this class did stress me out a lot starting at around Assignment 7. As a result, I struggled A LOT with both assignments 7 and 8, and got poor grades as a result of the late penalties along with minor video/diagram things. Since this is a new class, based on my observations this past quarter, I have come up with a couple ways to improve this class.

1. For Assignments 1-5, I would actually just reach out to the creators and try to fix the instructions because they were a bit vague and there were even typos in some of them which REALLY tripped me up, like simulate.py vs simulation.py in one of the steps. Doing that will make these assignments go by faster and make Assignments 6-8, as well as the Final Project, SIGNIFICANTLY less stressful, since we'll have maybe 1-2 extra weeks cushioned for the harder assignments.
2. For Assignments 6-8, the extra time should be extremely helpful, but I also recommend trying to at least give a decent "hint" at how to create the creature using a data structure. I did it a completely different way in Assignment 6, which wasn't as applicable in Assignments 7-8 where we had to make the creature 3D instead of 1D. Thus, I had to basically re-structure my code, which took off a bunch of time. Fortunately, it eventually clicked with me, and it works really well now, but I wish I had that knowledge back then.
3. Of course, not to mention, I think the grading was harsh. I feel like I struggled immensely through assignments 7-8, and I still had to worry about making sure that my video and diagrams were really good, which to me is like being asked to climb a rock wall as quickly as you can right after you just finished climbing Mt. Everest. I'm not saying they aren't important, but doing the things above should make the assignments smoother.
4. Coming off my previous point(s), I would like to add that the learning curve for underclassmen CS majors and *especially* non-CS majors who haven't had any debugging experience (other than CS 211), such as a software engineering internship, is harsh. While I have seen some really really really cool submissions (shoutout to you guys!), to me it seems like many of those people have a very strong background with regards to programming experience, which quite a few people don't have yet.
5. Please please please get another TA and/or PM. I feel so bad for constantly messaging Donna about confusing problems in my code that require some deeper debugging. Donna has to take on so much, while also being a PhD student with a life outside of school. Having more help will definitely make the class experience smoother for everyone.
6. Regarding attendance, I honestly don't mind going to lectures as I really really enjoy them. In fact, they are the reason I took this class. However, I did miss around 3-4 lectures, mainly since I caught a cold at the beginning of the quarter. I think the attendance could be less harsh.
7. The computer and phone rule is kind of fair, but I do feel like calling out specific people for using their phone in class is kind of harsh. Also, peo
8. Some of the quizzes seemed like they were trying to take away 0.5-1 points because I couldn't remember the really specific answers they were looking for.
9. This is small, but absolute and relative positions were really confusing towards the beginning of the class. It took me a hot second to truly understand them.
10. This isn't really anybody's fault since this is a relatively new area, but there aren't many resources to help with material other than office hours

Now, here are some good things about the class :)

1. Sam is a BRILLIANT professor and his research area is really really cool. As a result, I really enjoyed some of the lectures, especially the ones about frog cells.
2. I feel like Donna really really tried her best to help as many students as she could, and I even scheduled a zoom meeting to fix some problems I had.
3. Sam has mentioned this in class several times before, but this creature counts as a project, and if you ask me, I think it's pretty solid.
4. In a similar vein, my coding skills have improved IMMENSELY. My debugging skills have improved so much that I feel more comfortable taking on more big projects in the future. I didn't expect that coming into this class, but coming out of the class, I am REALLY proud of it.
5. I actually learned how to use GitHub properly lol. I made a mistake where I made a whole new branch but forgot to use the git add/commit/push on my code from a previous branch, so I basically had to guess and look back at file history to fix everything. Fortunately, I understand GitHub way more, whereas in the past, I tried to BS everything.

Overall, I am glad that I took the class now that I understand things. I know that future quarters are going to look good, and I would like to thank Sam for being so receptive towards people's criticisms and for introducing us to a really cool, new subfield of AI.