APPM 2460, Differential Equations Lab, Fall 2017

Announcements

• You can download Matlab with the CU site license here.

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• Course Information
  • Lecture Times and Locations
  • Office Hours
• Homework
• Projects
• Policies

Course Information

This is the optional lab class associated with APPM 2360. APPM 2360 and 2460 share some things in common:

• 2360 has usual homework, in addition to the projects. It also has exams and a final
• 2460 has its own additional homework
  • but 2460 does not have any exams or finals
• The main reason to take 2460 (in addition to 2360) is to gain experience with Matlab if you are not already familiar with it
  • Experience with Matlab will be beneficial for 2360 projects 

The course policies are the following: 

• Late homework will not be accepted.
• Homework is graded on completion as Pass/Fail.
• Missing 4 or more HW assignments will result in a Fail for the course.
• Missing 3 or more classes will result in a Fail for the course. 

No additional textbook required for this course

Lecture Times and Location

Office Hours

Homework

Homework is assigned every Tuesday during class, and is due the following Monday at 11:59 PM. Submit the assignment on the lab D2L dropbox in PDF FORMAT ONLY. To do so, log into D2L, click on ”Assessments” and choose ”Dropbox.” Choose the appropriate folder, and upload your .pdf. 

Just as in the differential equations lecture lecture, a part of this course is learning to clearly present technical concepts. The pdf you turn in should look neat and be well organized. More specifically, it should be

• Structured:
  • title
  • your name
  • the date/semester
  • it should be clear where each problem starts
• Professional:
  • You should include comments to describe your code as simply as possible. 
  • Axes must be labeled on all figures
• Complete
  • ​Include any code written and any output generated

Projects

You and your group will submit your project on D2L, in the appropriate dropbox (you can find these under the "assessments" tab in D2L) Your group must:

• You must work in a group of two or three. Working in larger or smaller groups will result in a significant penalty for all group members.
  • Do not put off finding a group, do this early. You should have a group set up within one week of the project assignment date. 
  • If you cannot find a group, email the instructors
• Submit your project in pdf format. When word documents are uploaded to D2L, the equations in them are commonly jumbled around.
• Submit the code used for your project (.nb file(s) for Mathematica, .m file(s) for MatLab, etc).
• DO NOT submit your project as a .zip file. Submit all documents separately in the original format. 
• Have only ONE group member submit the project. Having multiple people in your group submit the project to D2L will result in multiple grades, and we will take the LOWEST one.
• Include the names of all group members working on the project.

Writing Guidelines

Your report needs to accurately and consistently describe the steps you took in answering the questions asked. This report should have the look and feel of a technical paper. Presentation and clarity are very important. Here are some important items to remember: 

• Start with an introduction that describes what you will discuss in the body of your document. A brief summary of important concepts that you will be using in your discussion could be useful here as well.
• Summarize what you have accomplished in a conclusion. No new information nor new results should appear in your conclusion. You should only review the highlights of what you wrote about in body.
• Always include units in your answers.
• Always label plots and refer to them in the text.
• The main body of your paper should NOT include lengthy calculations. These should be included in an appendix, and referred to in the main body.
• Labs must be typed. Including the equations in the main body (part of your learning experience is to learn how to use an equation editor). An exception can be made for lengthy calculations in the appendix, which can be hand written (as long as they are neat and clean), and minor labels on plots, arrows in the text and a few subscripts.
• Your report doesn't have to be long. You need quality, not quantity of work. Of course you cannot omit any important piece of information, but you need not add any extras.
• DO NOT include print outs of computer software screens. You simply need to state which software you used in each step, and what it did for you.
• Include any plot that supports your conclusions or gives you insight in your investigations.
• Write your report in an organized and logical fashion. Section headers such as Introduction, Background, Problem Statement, Calculations, Results, Conclusion, Appendix, etc... are not mandatory, but are highly recommended. They not only help you write your report, but help the reader navigate through your paper, besides giving it a cleaner look.

If this is your first time writing a techincal report, the following example project may be of some use to you. Examples of a good report and a bad report are given here. Please note that these examples are likely shorter than your finished reports and are meant to only serve as a guide to promote good writing habits. 

Project Schedule

In this table, you'll find the instructions for each project; some projects have supplementary files, so be sure to look at all files for each project. Below is a table of topics and due dates.

Policies

• Disability Services
• Religious Observances
• Classroom Behavior
• Discrimination and Harassment
• Academic Honesty and Honor Code
• Final Examination Policy