This introductory laboratory course provides you with your first experience in conducting physics experiments. This includes taking measurements, processing them, and recording the results in a short paper.
Rules of attendance¶
To ensure that all students can complete the Introductory Laboratory Course in time, it is essential that everybody does what is asked of them. This has proved difficult for some students. This has forced us to make use of a penalty system. When penalties are imposed, they can have serious consequences: they could result in you failing the course and therefore failing the entire minor. (Below, the sanctions are indicated in italics.) For this reason, we strongly advise you to take note of the penalties for infractions like late arrival and do all you can to avoid them.
Illness, etc.¶
As stated earlier, the smooth running of the Introductory Laboratory Course relies upon your attending the sessions listed in your personal timetable. If you realize in advance that you will be absolutely unable upon your attending a particular session, contact the course office as soon as possible to try to arrange an alternative time and date. This is always subject to the availability of places, and you must have a legitimate reason for rescheduling (a holiday, for instance, is not acceptable).
By notifying us promptly, you may also enable the course office to reallocate your place to another student in a similar situation.
If you find yourself unable to attend at the last minute – due to illness, for example – you must inform the course office no later than 8.30am on the day of a missed morning session and no later than 1.30pm on the day of a missed afternoon session. To notify us, call 015 278 5886 or 015 278 2459 or e-mail adminnp
You will need to arrange an alternative time and date as soon as possible. If you fail to do so, you will not be able to continue the course.
You can cancel and reschedule attendance at lab sessions up to three times. If you try to do so a fourth time, you are considered to have fallen so far behind that you will be unable to pass the course in the current academic year and so are excluded from it.
Absences without notification¶
If you fail to attend a lab session or experiment without giving advance notice or informing us on time with a valid reason, you must report in person to the course office as soon as possible to arrange a new time and date.
In this case, one full point is deducted from your final grade for the course. Only one unannounced absence of this kind is permitted; if it happens a second time, you will be excluded from the course.
Lateness¶
Lab sessions begin promptly at either 8.45am or 1.45pm.
- If you arrive less than 15 minutes late, you are permitted to join the session.
- If you arrive more than 15 minutes late, you will not be permitted to the session and must report in person to the course office as soon as possible to arrange a new time and date. This due to safety issues and instructions that are necessary to know how instruments work and what is expected of you during the experiments.
The worst case scenario is that a full point is deducted from that specific experiment. Whether this penalty is applied, will be discussed with the practical coordinator.
Handing in your work¶
The course includes a number of assignments, in the form of lab concise papers of the experiments you have conducted, that need to be handed in. As stated, you are allowed to work in pairs but have to switch partner for the second experiment.
Your paper must be handed in using Brightspace, where it is grade using a rubric. This will be scanned for plagiarism using TurnItIn. You ought to submit your digital lab notebook using Vocareum.
The deadlines for submitting both versions (and, if required, improved rewrites) are set by the course administrators. In exceptional circumstances, you may be granted an extension of up to one week; to obtain one, you must apply at least one day before the original deadline and in person or by e-mail (not by telephone), with valid reasons.
If your second lab paper is not good enough, you will be asked to submit an improved rewrite by a new deadline. In this case, you must also provide the original version again. Without that, your revised paper will not be assessed.
If you fail to hand in and upload a paper on time, it will be marked 1 out of 10. Once you have missed the deadline, there is no point in submitting the paper at all as it will not be assessed anyway.
Fraud and plagiarism¶
To check that you have not copied somebody else’s work, or parts of it, your paper is scanned for plagiarism. If one or more passages are found to be identical to another paper, that is treated as fraud and the Board of Examiners is informed. The board has the power to impose very severe penalties, not least excluding you from the course.
Software¶
You need to install Arduino. Furthermore, you will use LaTeX. A simple way to use LaTeX is using Overleaf. For running the Jupyter Notebooks, we recommend VSC.
Contact¶
For advice, or to make complaints, please contact:
dr. ir. C. F. J. Pols
room A005
e-mail c