A tribe is a group of 3-6 Chemistry 103 students who have banded together to work on a project. Tribes may be formed for a single particular project or they may continue working together on more than one project. Each member of the tribe must play an active role in the accomplishment of the project. It is not enough to show up and watch the others work.
The first step to forming a tribe is to study for and pass the quiz for the project your are attempting. Then find some other students who have also passed the quiz and begin working on the project. When you are ready, everyone in the tribe should come to me with your graded quizzes and the project you have completed. I will ask each member of the tribe whether they actively participated in the project. Note: Lying is a serious honor offense punishable by suspension or expulsion! If any tribe member of your tribe does not have his graded quiz, or if the product or device is substandard, the whole tribe fails. The tribe is free, however, to try again (once per day) until the project is passed.
How will I know if someone is lying? For the most part I won't. But every member of the tribe will know and if you take the honor code seriously you have a duty to report infractions of the honor code. Certainly there are grey areas. Some members will just show more leadership in the group project than others. How will you know what "active participation" means? It is easier to tell you what is not active participation:
So what should you do if you couldn't be there at the start... if you had to leave early... if you didn't know what to do... if you had to get that homework finished? The solution is simple: don't pretend to be a member of the tribe. You can join another tribe when you do have the time and effort to put into the project. Or, you can forgo that project altogether and work on one of the other projects. That would be so much better than putting your classmates in the position of reporting you to the honor court.