Announcements

10/08/04 - Lab makeups must happen by the end of next week (10/15/04). Please contact me ASAP to arrange a lab makeup.

08/27/04 - Laboratory Sections begin the week of 9/6/04. Monday sections ONLY: first lab meeting is on 9/13/04.

Lab Section Website

http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~snichols/labs131.html

Laboratory Hours

Physics 131/133 L01 - Monday, 9:35-11:35 AM, A117

Office Hours

Mondays at 3:00-4:00 PM in A-131 (Help Room)
Thursdays at 9:00-10:00 AM in S-level pit
Thursdays at 10:00-11:00 AM in A-131 (Help Room)
Other Times: By appointment

Weekly Deadlines

Physics 131/133 L01 - Wednesday, 12 PM in A-131

Required Materials

Physics 131/133 Lab Manual (Print out weekly from the course webpage)
Lab notebook with graph paper (Recommended: Roaring Springs 77610, available at the university bookstore)

Lab Policies

• Always practice safety in the lab.
• Read about the lab in the manual BEFORE coming to lab - you WILL be quizzed.
• Students will work in groups of 2. A single remaining student may join two others to form a group of 3.
• Each student will write a lab report in black or blue ink (graphs and illustrations may be multi-color for clarity) in his/her own lab notebook. Printed lab reports MUST be pasted in the lab notebook.
• No lab reports written on loose-leaf paper will be accepted. Any computer-based work must be printed out and neatly taped or stapled into the lab notebook. Please refer to the course descriptions of acceptable computer work.
• Attendance will be taken at the beginning of the lab period. No lab reports will be accepted from absent students.
• Lab notebooks must be initialed by me before leaving for the day.
• Lab notebooks should be turned into your section's box in A-131 by the deadline to avoid late penalties. Please do not leave lab notebooks in my office as they may be lost.
• Write your full name, my name, course number, and lab section on the front cover of your lab notebooks. This is to protect YOU: if the lab notebooks are lost or placed in the wrong box, they can be returned to me.
  Example:
  John Doe
  PHY 131/133 L01
  TA: Sarah Nichols

Grading

• All laboratories are required for passing the course.
• Absent students with excuse forms should be sure to come to me to arrange a make-up lab. No make-ups will be arranged without a valid excuse form. A valid and documented medical excuse is required to obtain a valid excuse form.
• Each lab will be worth 10 points divided as follows:
• Introduction/Lab Quiz: 1 pt
• Experimental Method: 1 pt
• Data Record: 2 pts
• Analysis: 3 pts
• Conclusion: 3 pts
• Late lab reports will have a 1.0 point penalty for each day after the deadline with a cutoff at two days. No reports will be accepted after the cutoff. Exceptions to this policy can only be made with a valid excuse form.
• The lowest lab report score will NOT be dropped.
• At minimum, lab reports containing fabricated data will receive no analysis or conclusion points.
• Lab reports which do not have my signature on the data tables will receive no data record points.
• Copying of data, derivations, calculations, and/or text is illegal, and any instance of plagiarism will invalidate the whole report for all parties involved, and may possibly have further academic consequences.

Lab Reports

• I expect to see at least these 4 sections in a lab report when submitted for grading:


1. Experimental Method
• a diagram or sketch of the equipment
• the working equations (derivation if applicable)
• a list (or notes) of the steps taken during lab
2. Data Record*
• tables of measurements taken during lab
3. Analysis
• graphs of the data
• calculations
• error estimations
• table of final results
• answers to ALL lab questions
4. Conclusion
• discussion of results and comparisons to theory
• discussion on sources of error and their effects on the result

* - must be completed and initialed before leaving lab

• Numbers (with only a few exceptions, such as pi) should always be recorded with units.
• Graphs should fill the page (no more than 2 graphs per page), have complete labels, titles, and scaled axes, and should have errors bars shown when applicable.
• Error analysis should follow the course guidelines.
• Errors may be crossed through with a single line or whole pages can be crossed off with a large "X". Under no circumstances are pages to be removed from the lab manual. You will NOT be penalized for errors that are crossed out.
• A reasonable length for conclusions would be half a page or more.

Anonymous Feedback

If you have comments about the course and would like to remain anonymous, please take a moment to submit them. Comments can be written or typed and submitted into the same box as the lab reports. Feedback from students is an important source of information in identifying areas in need of improvement.

Sarah R. Nichols
Department of Physics and Astronomy
SUNY Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794

Last Update - 01/26/05