The rhythm of things

Time-on-task is an important part of mastering the tools you will use this semester. Rather than staging the various tasks for completing your project sequentially, you’ll work with many of them in parallel. This will give you more time to digest the fine points of working with the tools we’ll employ.

Each week you’ll advance the design of your data logger, write Arduino code to communicate with your sensors, further develop your plans for the field work necessary for your project (including the structure of data acquisition code), and address physical infrastructure matters like case construction and PCB fabrication.

After the first week we’ll have brief reports to the class from a few of the teams. Topics (which I will assign) might include how a particular sensor works, what an interrupt does, how the I2C data transfer protocol works, and so forth. A report should last at most ten minutes, be carried in at most ten PowerPoint slides, be presented to the class by all the team members, and be suitable for upload to the course web site. (That means proper attribution of sources, and so forth.)

Every week (preferably Wednesday or Thursday), each team will meet with me for 20 minutes to discuss progress, problems, clever ideas, and any other issues that might arise.

From time to time we’ll have experts speak to us about subjects relevant to your efforts. For example, Professor Eric Benson (Chair of Graphic Design in UIUC’s School of Art and Design) will discuss design issues before you begin to sketch a case for your device.

What I require of you

The homework will consist of moving your design forward as far (and as fast) as you can. I expect you will spend about six hours at this outside of class every week. You should work with the other members of your team as much as possible, sharing code and design tips as convenient. You should document your progress, your plans, your brilliant realizations, your frustrations, and your concerns in your electronic diary.

You are to upload a PDF version of your entire cumulative electronic diary to the course directory every week. Please put this into a single file; when you close one volume and open another, please upload a file that includes all previous volumes as well as the present one. Uploads are due at noon on Fridays, beginning with the second week. You should indicate the time/date for the material you enter, as well as with whom you’ve been collaborating.

You and your team will meet with me once per week for 20 minutes. All members of your team must attend, and must arrive promptly at the scheduled time, without exception.

You and your team members will give several reports to the class over the course of the semester. The reports are to be clearly written PowerPoint presentations (with proper attribution of sources) aimed at your audience of fellow students, who will not necessarily know what you mean by, for example, “I2C interface.”

You must come to class on time, arriving with your laptop and power adapter, goodie box of parts and tools, and breadboard. When you have a working, finished, PCB version of your device you should bring both the breadboarded and PCB versions of your device.

There will be no midterm exams.

In place of a final exam, I will require you and members of your team to generate three documents, with all team members as coauthors:
⚛ A 20 minute PowerPoint presentation describing your project: the measurement(s) you’ve made, and the reasons for so doing; the hardware and software you’ve built to perform these measurements; your fieldwork and calibrations; your analysis and conclusions. Your intended audience comprises your Physics 398DLP classmates. Presentations are due at the start of class, week 14; you will present during the 14th week of the term.
⚛ A written report of approximately twenty pages, single spaced, describing your measurements and conclusions; this is essentially the same information that you will write into your PowerPoint presentation. However, your report should be aimed at an audience that is outside the university community. For example, if you’ve measured the anomalous transverse accelerations of Amtrak trains, your audience might be the Illinois Department of Transportation. Your report is due in class on week 14.

The grading will be similar to Physics 298owl: if you work hard, are clever, come to all class activities, and do a good job on your reports you will receive at least an A. But if you miss class, miss conferences with me, are late uploading your diary files, or do not do a good job on your reports, I will hammer you.

Your obligations include working in a safe manner: always wearing eye protection when soldering, always washing your hands soon after handling metallic objects such as header pins or solder.

Attendance

You are required to attend each and every one of the course meetings, arriving on time with your laptop computer, charger, and device hardware. Please bring your hardcopy of all course material too. Excused absences will be granted and documented in accordance with University policy as described in Article 1, Part 5 Class Attendance, of the Student Code.

You must file your documentation concerning an excused absence on the Physics Department's Excused absences portal within two weeks of your absence.

Excused absences fall into the following categories as defined by the code:

• • illness
• • emergency beyond the student's control (e.g. an auto accident or death in the family)
• • required attendance at a University event (e.g. varsity athletics)
• • serving as a volunteer emergency worker
• • religious observance or practice: this requires you to file a "request for accommodation for religious observances form." The form must be uploaded to the Excused Absences portal no later than two weeks after the first day of class.

Milestones

There will be no midterm exams. But there are milestones that I ask you to meet, and will consider these when evaluating your work for a grade. Here are the milestones and deadlines:

In place of a final exam, I will require you and members of your team to generate two documents, with all team members as coauthors:
  • A 20 minute PowerPoint presentation describing your project: the measurement(s) you’ve made, and the reasons for so doing; the hardware and software you’ve built to perform these measurements; your fieldwork and calibrations; your analysis and conclusions. Your intended audience comprises your Physics 398DLP classmates. Presentations are due at the start of class, week 14; you will present during the 14th week of the term.
  • A written report of at least ten pages (single spaced), describing your measurements and conclusions; this is essentially the same information that you will write into your PowerPoint presentation. However, your report should be aimed at an audience that is outside the university community. For example, if you’ve measured the anomalous transverse accelerations of Amtrak trains, your audience might be the Illinois Department of Transportation. Your report is due in stages; see the course calendar for details.

The grading will be similar to Physics 298owl: if you work hard, are clever, come to all class activities, and do a good job on your hardware, software, and reports you will receive at least an A. But if you miss class, miss conferences with me, are late uploading your diary files, or do not do a good job on your project or reports, I will hammer you.

If you miss class for a legitimate reason, you must submit documentation to Kate Shunk in the Undergraduate Physics Office or upload it through the excused absence portal linked to the “Course policies” page on the p398DLP web site. Take note of the deadlines for submission of your documentation! I will expect you to make up the work you didn't accomplish.

Your obligations include working in a safe manner: always wearing eye protection when soldering and always washing your hands soon after handling metallic objects such as header pins or solder.

Course components used to calculate your course grade:
  • Short in-class group presentations on technical issues pertaining to your project;
  • Quality and efficiency of your group’s collaborative interaction;
  • Quality of your project hardware and data acquisition work;
  • Quality of your offline analysis software work;
  • Compliance with schedule mile markers and deadlines;
  • Project PowerPoint presentation;
  • Project report.

Your grade will be based almost entirely on the semester’s work, including your electronic diaries, and the final project reports and associated material.

Calculators, smart phones, and network access to irrelevant content

You will be using your laptops in class. During class you are not to access anything that is not directly relevant to the work at hand: no visits to social media sites, or unnecessary logins to your email accounts.

Academic integrity

You must never submit the work of someone else as your own. Always identify your sources.

It is cheating to receive work from another student and then represent it as your own. It is cheating—and a violation of U.S. copyright law—to give (or sell) course material to someone else who intends to redistribute and/or sell it.

Cheating will be penalized harshly: I will award zero credit for any assignment in which a student is found to have cheated. I will also probably reduce your course grade by two letter grades (so that an A becomes a C), though I reserve the right to issue an F for the entire course to any student who is found to have cheated.

All activities in this course, including documentation submitted for petition for an excused absence, are subject to the Academic Integrity rules as described in Article 1, Part 4, Academic Integrity, of the Student Code.