Overview
This web page contains material for the computing and data analysis elements of the first-year PHAS1240 Practical Skills course. You should have been informed during Induction week by your Tutor as to which session you have been assigned (Monday, Tuesday or Thursday afternoon). This may be checked by viewing the file 1240_allocations-06.xls. If your name does not appear, please go to the sessions on Tuesdays.
The practical sessions last from 14:00 to 17:30 and are located in the cluster room (room 113) in 1-19 Torrington Place, apart from the session on Thursday 19 October, which will be held in the cluster room (D103) on the first floor of the Student Union building, 25 Gordon Street.
There will be no PHAS1240 sessions in week 4, starting Monday 23 October. Instead there will be an introduction to Dreamweaver as part of the Communication Skills course. Monday's Dreamweaver session will take place in room G20 of the Christopher Ingold building. Tuesday's and Thursday's Dreamweaver sessions will take place in the cluster room (B12) of the Cruciform Building.
The tasks for each week are given below.
The main elements of the course are
- analysis of data and treatment of uncertainties of measurement (Data Analysis) - discussed in lectures
and illustrated by exercises using Excel
- use of spreadsheets (Excel) for
- analysis and presentation of experimental data
- mathematical modelling, simulation, analysis and problem solving
- introduction to computer programming by means of Visual Basic for
Applications (VBA) - introduced in
lectures and applied in Excel/VBA exercises at the computer terminal
There will be one lecture (~ 1 hour), common for all the class, and one computing session (~ 3 hours) for each student per week.
Unless informed otherwise, all work for the course should be
carried out during the computing sessions. It will be assessed only in
these sessions. It should normally not be necessary to carry out
additional computing work for the course outside the timetabled
sessions, though having read the lecture notes would be an advantage
for the computing exercises. The exercises of Week 1 will not be
assessed and are intended for you as an introduction to Excel and for
us to assess your previous experience. All the other exercises
(from Week 2 to Week 10) WILL be
assessed.
Students come to these computing tasks with a wide range of
computing experience and ability. To help you demonstrators will
be
available in the sessions to answer (mostly) your questions and offer
advice.
The tasks for each week are given below
- Week starting Monday 2nd October (Week 1)
- Week starting Monday 9th October (Week 2)
- Week starting Monday 16th October (Week 3)
- Week starting Monday 23rd October (Week 4)
- Week starting Monday 30th October (Week 5)
- Week starting Monday 6th November (Week 6)
- Week starting Monday 13th November (Week 7)
- Week starting Monday 20th November (Week 8)
- Week starting Monday 27th November (Week 9)
- Week starting Monday 4th December (Week 10)