Week 4 - 6 �Final Project and Presentation

UCLA Physics Department

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University of California, Los Angeles

Department of Physics and Astronomy

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Physics 4AL

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Learning Outcomes

• Learn how to design and conduct your own experiment as a group.
• Collaborate closely (but potentially remotely)
• Follow curiously, and complete the project in 2-3 weeks.
• Learn how to apply your working knowledge:
• Arduino-based data taking
• Data analysis by Python
• Related physics topics from Physics 1A/1B/1C
• Learn how to make oral presentation.
• Preparation of clean google slides
• Presentation in front of other students in the lab

UCLA Physics Department

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Possible 4AL Projects

• Projectile motion based projects
• Conservation of momentum/energy
• Biomechanics / Human body motion projects
• Oscillation based projects
• Friction
• Rotation based projects
• Any other project related to mechanics
• Reaction Time Study (Only for Virtual Session)

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Weekly Operation

• All of students are supposed to work together
• at the assigned section times
• plus extra convenient times (together or individually)
• Each team is supposed to distribute tasks so that
• Some members setup the experiments and collect data
• Some members analyze the data
• All members contribute to presentation slides and report
• But welcome to have well-defined separate tasks per member
• Hardware specialist
• Analysis specialist

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Project guidelines

• Teams can use equipment in the lab for their projects only during the official lab hours/office hours

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• The projects should have a good scope for the work of all group members over the next few weeks. Each group member should plan on working for 3 labs of 2 hours each = 6 hours on the project. The work required for the project should reflect this

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• The projects must be related to mechanics, and they must include:
• Predictive hypothesis based on physics background
• Data taking with the Arduino
• Data analysis and plotting with Python (including curve fitting and error analysis)
• Using error to properly compare results with hypothesis

Weekly Schedule

• Week 4,5
• Design and setup experiments
• Preliminary data taking and analysis
• Final data taking and analysis
• Write project presentations
• Week 6
• Project presentations
• Project report

Project Submissions

You will need to submit the following items for your project:

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Project Presentation (~10 slides)

1. Title, Authors (with majors)
2. Introduction: Motivation, Hypothesis
3. Methods
1. Experimental setup (with a picture)
2. Data taking protocols
3. Data Analysis
4. Discussion and Conclusions
• Evaluation of significance
• Conclusions
• Future prospects
5. Acknowledgements
6. References

Final assignments

There are 4 final assignments to be submitted at the end of Week 6:

• Project presentation PDF - Convert your presentation slides to a PDF and upload to Gradescope (only one member per team)
• Presentation evaluation - Use this template to provide your thoughts on the presentations of other teams (submitted by each student)
• Final report - Write a final report on your project (only one member per team)
• Final report team participation - Talk about the performance and contributions of your teammates (submitted by each student)

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