Do's and Don't's of Undergraduate Research
To me, the quality that makes a student not a burden is the following:


  A willingness to learn for themselves and good judgement about when to stop and ask for feedback.*


If a student isn't willing to try things out and learn independently, then it creates a burden on the supervisor. I really don't appreciate when a student asks me how to do something before they do a basic Google search.

Similarly, if a student doesn't know how to judge when he/she is "stuck" and needs help, this also creates a burden on the supervisor (because the supervisor has to keep checking on the student to make sure they're progressing).

The dos and don'ts (to avoid being a "burden") that come to mind are:


Do ask your supervisor this question at the very beginning, to find out what he/she expects from you.
Do take detailed notes when you have a meeting with your supervisor or somebody teaches you how to do something, so you can refer to them later
Do keep a written record of your own attempts and progress (such as a lab notebook) to show your supervisor during meetings
Do ask a question if you don't understand an instruction or something that is said, because it will be much better for everyone involved if you clear things up sooner rather than later.
Do mention your own ideas to your supervisor, if you have some that you think will make your research better.
Don't think that just because you are an undergraduate, you can't make much of a contribution. Obviously experience helps, but it's really only a small piece of what makes someone a skilled researcher. Willingness to learn is a much bigger piece, IMO. I've had high-school summer interns who were better than any of the M.S. students in the lab, simply because they put in more effort to learn.


* Source of the quote: The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research, by Marian Petre &amp; Gordon Rugg