Office: 2-300 AB, office O
Phone: 762-7488
Email: dludwigs@kettering.edu
Please feel free to contact me or visit my office any time. I am most readily available during office hours, Monday and Thursday 10:15 - 11:20. You can check my schedule to see where I'll be when.
I hope that you will enjoy exploring physics with your hands, eyes, and ears. We may see concepts before they are treated in lecture, or topics entirely unique. Take the view of the experimenter, and meet new material with curiosity and a sense of play. Dig in deep!
Your submitted grade for this laboratory course will be heavily influenced by your scores on the weekly labs. There is also an exam oriented to the practical side of lab: taking measurements and analyzing the results. (See the schedule in Blackboard's Course Information to find out when that exam will replace the weekly lab experiment). Practice good lab technique, taking and perhaps re-taking data with care. Analyze the data with depth of thought and consideration of both physical and practical influences, and you will receive better scores on the weekly laboratory exercises.
Each week has 20 points. You score points from a weekly quiz (up to three points) and a lab report (up to 19 points). The exam will be worth 45 points, or just over two week's worth of your grade.
9 x 20 = 180 points from weekly lab reports and quizzes
45 points from the exam
Total = 225 points
The grade you will earn for the course is simply your accumulated point total divided by 225.
Notice that participation is inherently incoporated into your grade.
Appeals are welcome if you feel that an exam or report has not been graded fairly. Prepare your argument in writing, either by prose explanation or clearly-worked solution, and turn it in with the graded assignment. I'll provide a written response.
Each week before you come to class, you will answer three questions about the lab on Blackboard (go the the Assignments area of our Blackboard course). You'll have 15 minutes from the time you open the quiz. These questions require that you read the lab manual BEFORE you take the quiz. You'll have enough time to find an answer in the manual, but not enough time to read the whole experiment. Each week's quiz will disappear and become unavailable at the start of class. The next one will appear when class is over, so you have a week to complete it.
The point of the quizzes is to ensure that you prepare for the week's activities before you arrive. You are encouraged to ask questions and clarify muddy points at the beginning of the lab, but you should come in the door knowing what the experiment is all about.
The first week's quiz will be available until Friday at 3:00 p. m., the same time the lab reports are due.
Each week you will work through a lab exercise with a predetermined lab partner. Follow the procedure in the lab manual, and include in your reports:
your measured data and calculated results, with all relevant units and uncertainties, well labeled
sample calculations to indicate how you are treating the raw data (JUST ONE sample for each type of calculation - no need to show all your work)
answers to the quantitative (number-oriented) and qualitative (concept-oriented) questions in the manual
a short conclusion
avoid simply answering the “Consider” questions in the manual – they are there to spur your thinking
instead, each week you should answer:
What did we do?
What did we find?
What does it mean?
a decent conclusion will be half a page to a page of summary, NOT play-by-play!
Labs are due Friday, 3:00 pm in my mailbox (Science & Math offices 2-300). Late lab reports will be penalized two points after the first week.
To learn about how I will grade the lab reports, read over the Scoring Guide in Blackboard's Course Information area (download the pdf). You will earn points in four categories: Diligence (doing the work), Data Quality (making decent measurements), Analysis (processing the data to get results), and Understanding (interpreting the results to clear physical principles). I will try to provide plenty of feedback for improvement, however, always feel free to ask for specific guidance.
Avoid these regrettable and egregious behaviors:
Citing human error as a source of error. This will result in a zero for that lab. (Instead, think about specific reasons for spread or inaccuracy of data.)
Turning in data and calculations that are unreadable and illegible. Label data in columns, title and label graphs and charts, show sample calculations that clearly indicate where you start the analysis and how it proceeds. Use variable names that are clear and conventional.
Eating and drinking in the lab. This is not allowed for safety and cleanliness.
Not showing up. If you have to be absent for any part of a lab period, please let me know EARLY, so you may attend another section. Unwarranted absences or a pattern of tardiness will adversely affect your grade. (For example, a zero on that week's lab.)
Turning in lab reports after Friday, 3:00 p. m. You will lose two points that week.
If you miss more than three labs, excused or not, you will be withdrawn from the course.
Labs are due Friday, 3:00 pm in my mailbox (Science & Math offices 2-300). Late lab reports will be penalized two points after the first week.
Motivated by the goals and objectives of the course, these policies and procedures are intended to foster a safe and constructive environment for learning physics. To maintain this kind of environment, the instructor reserves the right to take any reasonable action sanctioned by University policy, including but not limited to failure on an assignment or withdrawal of student from the course. Disruptive behavior (including excessive talking), ethnic or racial discrimination, or sexual harassment will not be tolerated. Please turn off cell phones and pagers.
Academic Integrity. I expect the highest level of academic integrity from students. Plagiarism (the use of another's ideas as your own) is not acceptable. Evidence of cheating, or anything contradicting these policies, may result in a score of zero on the assignment or other action at my discretion. Please know and practice the Kettering University Code of Academic Integrity, found in the student handbook.
Withdraw Policy. The Applied Physics faculty adopted the following policy for student withdrawal from Newtonian Mechanics (PHYS-114), Newtonian Mechanics Laboratory (PHYS-114), Electricity and Magnetism (PHYS-224), and Electricity and Magnetism Laboratory (PHYS-225).
If a student fails or withdraws from a laboratory (PHYS-115 or PHYS-225), he or she must repeat the entire laboratory, completing all experiments. Students will not be excused from experiments performed during the previous term.
PHYS-224, Electricity and Magnetism, is a corequisite for this
lab, as is Calculus 3. Phys1 lecture and lab, and Calculus 2,
are prerequisites. Be certain that you have these courses as
required, or you may be withdrawn from the course.