Help!
Most
students find the material in this course challenging.
Don't expect to attend a lecture, and then immediately be
able to apply the topics that were discussed. The
lectures are just meant to show you what you need to know -
working through the assignments, with help, if necessary,
is the best way to actually learn the material and to see
how to apply it. Expect to make use of all the
resources available to you - the online notes, sections,
Faculty office hours, TA office hours, and individual
tutoring.
You should
aim to get 100% on every homework assignment. If you
don't know how to do something, or aren't sure that you've
done a problem correctly - ask, and we'll help you.
We expect to be helping you a lot! The homework,
and even projects, are meant to be a learning aid, not a
means to assess your understanding of the material.
Faculty contact information:
Graduate TA contact information:
Textbooks and Reference Material:
There is no
required text for this course: the main reference will be
the online notes. However, you may find it helpful to
buy a textbook to provide a source of additional practice
problems, as well as another perspective on the course
content.
There are huge numbers of textbooks on dynamics. The
available offerings differ in style, although their content
is very similar. The book that will work best for you
is usually a matter of preference. A few suggestions are
given below.
It is not
necessary to buy the latest edition of these books -
Newton's laws haven't changed appreciably in the last few
years. You will also find that some of the textbooks don't
contain much in the way of realistic engineering
applications in their problem sets. They will help
you to understand the basic principles, but perhaps not to
apply them to practice.
Class Schedule and Room Assignments:
Main
Lectures: 9am-10:20am Tues/Thurs room 166 Barus-Holley
Building
Sections:
Meet on Mon and Wed, and occasionally on Fri at the
following times:
-
9:00am-9:50am Room 161 B&H (W. Curtin)
-
10:00am-10:50am Room 141 B&H (R. Grantab)
-
11:00am-11:50am Room 153 B&H (A. Bower)
-
1:00-1:50pm Room 153 B&H (V. Shenoy)
-
2:00-2:50pm Room 153 B&H (V. Shenoy)
Faculty office hours: (start week of Jan 26)
-
Tuesdays
3:30-4:30 Room 731 (Prof Bower)
-
Tuesdays
4:30-5:30 Room 096 (Rassin Grantab)
-
Wednesday
3:30-5:30 Room 604 (Prof Shenoy)
-
Thursday
10:30-12:30 Room 731 (Prof Bower)
-
Thursday
3:30-5:30 Room 612 (Prof Curtin)
If these
times are not convenient we will be happy to meet with
you at other times - email to set up an appointment.
TA office hours: (start
week of Jan 26)
- Monday 4:00-5:00 Room
096 Giancarlo extension Scott Hoffman
- Monday 5:00-6:00 Room
096 Giancarlo extension Sean Teller
- Tuesday 6:00-9:00 Room
096 Giancarlo extension (Nitin Jadhav)
- Wednesday 5:00-8:00pm
Room 096 Giancarlo extension (Vissu Chinthapenta)
- Wednesday 8:00-10:00
Room 096 Giancarlo extension Sean Teller
- Thursday 6:00-8:00pm
Room 096 Giancarlo extension (David Cipoletti)
- Thursday 8:00-9:00 Room
096 Giancarlo extension Scott Hoffmann
Tutoring:
The following TAs are available
for one-on-one tutoring on request. Contact the TA by email
to set up an appointment
Grading Policy
Your final score in the
course will be determined using the following algorithm
- Homework: 25%
- Midterm Exam: 15%
- Final Examination: 25%
- Design Projects: 5% each
-
Lecture
attendance 10%. We will not take attendance in the
first 3 lectures (to allow for shopping period) and you
can miss 3 lectures (in emergency) without penalty.
Additional missed lectures will not be excused for any
reason. Attendance will not be monitored in
sections, but of course we hope to see you there...
Regrettably in a class of
this size it is not feasible for us to assign special
projects to make up for missed homework, project work, or
poor performance on examinations
We will
follow the tenets of the Academic Honor Code of Brown
University. Honor code violations will result in loss
of credit for the course and may be subject to additional
penalties as determined by the academic disciplinary
committee. We can't risk graduating
engineers who are unethical: they might end up killing
someone!
Submitting
work and collecting graded assignments
Homework assignments
and project work should be submitted to Stephanie Gesualdi at the
first workstation on the North side of the 7th floor of the Barus-Holley
building
Graded assignments may
be collected from the boxes opposite her workstation.
Grade change
requests
If you find
that your grades have been added incorrectly, or you would
like a grade on your homework, examination or laboratory
assignment reconsidered, you should
-
Prepare a
brief written statement explaining why you think your
grade is incorrect;
-
Leave
your written request, together with the homework/lab/exam in
question in the box marked `grade change requests' across
from Ms. Gesualdi's desk on the 7th north floor of Barus-Holley.
Please bear in mind that your
assignments are graded by a large number of long-suffering
undergrad TAs, graduate TAs and faculty. It is impossible to guarantee
consistency between grading of different graders - instead,
we try to make sure that your assignments are cycled through
the various graders.
Also note
that each entire HW set amounts to about 2% of your final
grade, and hence each problem amounts to less than 0.3% of
your final grade, and each point of each problem about 0.03%
of your final grade. It's not worth worrying about a few
points here and there!
Collaboration Policy
Homeworks: 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.
Design Projects:
Collaboration is required on group design projects.
It is important for all team members to bear an equal share
of the work involved in the project. You will be asked
to assign a grade to each of your team mates in the project,
based in part on their level of contribution to the project.
Part of the grade for the project will be based on team
evaluations. NO COLLABORATION OF ANY KIND IS
PERMITTED ON THE LUNAR IMPACT DESIGN PROJECT.
Examinations: No
collaboration of any kind is permitted on examinations. Duh!
