A0 is critically important to familiarize oneself with the hardware used in the course, to understand the difficulty and workload, and to meet other students in the lab to form a project group for subsequent assignments. Skipping A0 is not advisable!
Those students that cannot register for the course in due time should attend classes and do the first assignment A0 anyway. Class enrolment is typically much lower after A0 and we can usually accommodate all interested students at this time.