There will be two types of graded material in this course:
Homework Problems and Real Problems.
They will be weighted as follows:
Problem sets will be assigned weekly, and
each assignment will
typically
contain several problems of each type.
Homework Problems
Homework Problems
are intended
to give you an opportunity to
practice working with new topics
as they
are introduced.
These will generally be
straightforward
problems where you are given a well defined
situation
and asked to
compute
a quantitative
answer
or show that a particular
result
is correct.
Most of these will be
taken from the
end-of-chapter problems in the textbook.
You may (and in fact are encouraged to)
work together on homework,
but you
should
prepare the work you hand in on your own.
Real Problems
Real Problems are intended to test the knowledge you have gained from
reading, lectures, and homework.
While some of them may be similar to Homework Problems,
most will be more realistic and application oriented.
Solutions to these problems will typically
involve
a mixture of
analysis, computation, research, and work in the laboratory.
Real Problems may be either individual or group efforts.
Some guidelines:
- Lab Problems.
-
You may work on Lab problems in groups of 1 to 3 people.
You may discuss Lab problems with other groups, but should not share
your data.
- Computation Problems.
-
Problems labeled as Computation Problems may also be done in groups of
1 to 3 people.
You may discuss computation problems with other groups, but should
not share code or code fragments.
- Other Problems.
-
Unless otherwise stated, all other problems should be individual efforts,
and should not be discussed with anyone other than the instructor.
Due Dates
All problems are due in class on the date specified in the assignment.
Homework Problems turned in after the end of class, but before 5 PM
the same day,
will be accepted with a 10% penalty.
Homework Problems turned in after 5 PM, but within one week of the due date,
will be accepted with a 50% penalty.
Homework Problems received more than one week late will not be accepted.
Real Problems which are late will be penalized 10% per week
or fraction thereof.
No problems will be accepted after the last day of class.
Redemption
In computing your grade, the problems in each group
(Homework and Real) will be ordered by score and only the
upper 90% will be used,
i.e. the lower 10% of each group will be discarded.
Writing up Problems
Homework and Real Problems should be submitted separately.
All Homework Problems for a single assignment should be collected
together in a single document.
Real Problems may be submitted individually or together, but each
problem should begin on a separate page.
Your documents may be word processed or handwritten, whichever you prefer,
as long as they are legible
and gramatically correct.
Note that although this is an Engineering, rather than an English, course,
you will be expected to provide at least a basic narative structure to your answers.
In the case of Homework Problems, this may take the form of an occasional brief
phrase
(e.g. "It follows that")
guiding the way through your reasoning.
Your Real Problems should have a higher level of organization,
e.g. there should be sentences and the occasional paragraph interspersed among
the equations, numbers, and drawings.