PHYS 124 - Freshman Project |
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Semester: | Spring 2024 | ||
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Instructor: | Cemal Yalabık | ||
Office: | Room SA-228 | Phone 1316 | |
Office Hours: | Fridays | 12:40 - 13:30 | Room SA-228 |
All other times | (if available - call 1316 to check) | Room SA-228 | |
Assistant: | Efe Dorukhan Salepci |
About the course:
This course intends to impart to the student, knowledge and capabilities associated with
basic research methods and tools needed to carry out research in Physics.
The course will involve 2 hours/week of classroom instruction in which the student
will be exposed to such subjects as literature and citation search through indices,
planning and carrying out research procedures, research ethics, use of scientific
computer tools for statistical analysis, report construction and presentation.
Class hours coincide with the Colloquium times, and there will be no class on Colloquium days.
The course will proceed in relation with a project on a specific topic in physics or a closely related area. The course will expose students to research through projects that require no prior knowledge beyond the high school level.
Teaching goals include practicing critical thinking, analyzing cause and effect relationships, planning controlled experiments, as well as gaining familiarity with useful skills such as literature search and scientific document preparation.
Homework:
The project activity and classroom topics will generate regular assignments
aiming to provide sufficient practice of the tools thought during class.
Attendance requirement
If a student misses more than 6 hours of class, (s)he will need to compensate this
by completing assignments which will take much longer time to do, or the grade will be an F.
Grading:
The grading will be based on the progress of the student's research project,
which will be assessed regularly during the semester through the reports and
presentation material that will have to be prepared. Students will also be
graded on the presentation of their project at the end of the semester.
Homework performance and attendance will also affect the final grade.
Assignments:
Literature search homework | 10% | Due | |
Project proposal | 10% | Due | |
LaTex homework | 10% | Due | |
Project progress report | 10% | Due Wednesday Mar. 27 | |
Numerical modeling homework 1 | 10% | Due | |
Numerical modeling homework 2 | 10% | Due | |
Project report | 10% | Due Wednesday, May 1 | |
Project presentation material | 10% | Due | |
Project presentation | 20% |
Assignments are to be submitted through the Moodle system, in the form of a PDF file.
Please name the file in the format:
You can view your grades through the Stars system.
Course Schedule: | |||
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First meeting: Wednesday, Jan. 31, 15:30 - 16:20 in Room | |||
Lectures: | Wednesdays | 15:30 - 16:20 | Room |
Laboratory sessions: | Wednesdays | 15:30 - 16:20 | Room |
There will be changes to this program, based on the Colloquium schedule.
Watch this web page for changes!
Week | Class discussion | Tasks/Assignments | Lab work (Tuesday Afternoons) Introduction, description of work to be carried out [Discussion of possible project topics] Literature search | Discussion of available personal and university resources
Planning a project
Hypothesis, analysis/experiment, evaluation | Class discussions on all of the project topics
Students come with printed material related to possible topics Selection of general area of the project Introduction to LaTex Tutorial Files The LaTex manual Gnuplot information | Literature search homework due More Latex | Project proposal due Lab work | Latex and Gnuplot applications No class | Numerical modeling | LaTex homework due Lab work | Numerical modeling applications Lab work | Project progress report due | Numerical modeling exercise Research ethics | Numerical modeling homework 1 due | Holiday week |
Scientific writing
Scientific presentations | Numerical modeling homework 2 due No class Holiday - No class | Project report due (Latex generated PDF) No class | Presentation material due Presentations | Project Presentations | Project Presentations |
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Some examples of student project presentation material from previous years