Homework Assignments

General Homework Policies:

  • Homework will be assigned on Thursdays and will be due by noon the following Friday.

  • Please submit your homework by placing them in the boxes provided on the 7th floor of Barus-Holley building, North side, opposite Stephanie Gesualdi's workstation. (HW #1 is submitted by email)

  • We will not count your lowest homework grade when computing your final grades. We strongly advise you to reserve the option not to submit a homework for emergencies.  Homework and design projects are designed as learning aids - if you don't do them, you will not learn the material!

  • Homework will not be excused for any reason. 

  • Collaboration policy: You may work on homework problems as a group.  However, any work submitted for grading must represent work done by the person who will receive credit for the assignment.  It is not acceptable for two students to submit identical copies of a homework problem.  It is not acceptable for one student to copy work previously done by another.   COPYING MATLAB PROGRAMS IS FORBIDDEN.

IMPORTANT: We make up our own homework problems instead of taking them from a book, to make the course more up to date and relevant.  One regrettable consequence of this policy is that the homework assignments will almost certainly contain mistakes.  If you find something in an assignment that doesn't work out, check with a TA or faculty member to see if there is an error before spending hours looking for your own error.

Assignments (tentative list - check this page for updates)

  1. MATLAB tutorial and MATLAB assignment (Due Friday Jan 30) Solutions

  2. Particle dynamics (Due Friday Feb 6) Solutions

  3. Analyzing motion of particles with MATLAB (Due Friday Feb 13) Solutions

  4. Energy methods for particles (Due Friday Feb 27) Solutions

  5. Linear and Angular Momentum for particles (Not graded - use as exam prep) Solutions
    The matlab snooker simulation can be downloaded here

  6. Vibrations 1 (Due Friday, March 20) Solutions NOTE: Prob. 2 depends on Lo.  Assume L=Lo.

  7. Vibrations 2 (Due Friday, April 3) (Last Problem revised slightly on March 29/30) Solutions

  8. Vibs/Rigid-Body Project HW (Part 2 of the attached file, which is the Project description; new file with slight modifications to clarify analysis was posted 4/6/09)  Solution

  9. Kinematics of Rigid Bodies ; Solutions

  10. Dynamics of Rigid Bodies ; Solutions