The experiments you will perform in PHYS 211 are based on cornerstone, often Nobel Prize-winning work. In the instructional laboratory setting, they often take the form of laboratory exercises designed to show physics phenomena or teach specific skills, but when possible we have also tried to build in opportunities for work that more closely resembles research (e.g. doing literature searchers, making experimental design or measurement decisions, working collaboratively, and iterating on ideas.) We hope that these experiments provide a fuller understanding of physics and preparation for future research.

By offering the Advanced Laboratory Course, we hope to shed light on the following questions:

1. How do we develop a systematic process of doing experiments? - How should we interpret theoretical concepts in the real world? - What experimental techniques are available for producing and analyzing data? - With what degree of confidence can we trust our measurements and interpretations? - How well does a theory represent physical reality? - How do we collaborate with experimental partners? - How do we best communicate our findings to others?

These questions are of fundamental importance to experimental physics, yet are not generally addressed by reading text books, attending lectures or doing homework problem sets. Thus, to provide a more complete understanding of physics, we offer these laboratory exercises as a supplement to the other modes of learning.

Each student will participate in two extended projects per quarter. A project takes place over a 4-week period, and will involve close (albeit remote) collaboration in groups of 3 students. A typical project will have many parts, including the following:

• research into a topic (either provided readings or an independent literature search),
• several weeks of data collection (via remote operation of the apparatus, via simulation, or via submission of a proposal to lab staff who will collect on your behalf)
• analysis and iteration,
• investigation of systematics or auxiliary exploratory experiments, and
• a summary report.

Projects are designed to mimic the form of professional research groups (though the basic research question and apparatus will be provided rather than created on your own). A project will be graded based on participation (25%) and the final report (75%).

In addition to the project arc, there will be a parallel track throughout the year to teach skills needed to read and (eventually) write professional-level journal articles. This track takes the following form:

• Autumn Quarter: practice doing literature searches and researching a topic, and participation in a journal club to discuss and break-down articles;
• Winter Quarter: continuation of journal club, and practice writing introductions, abstracts, and conclusions; and
• Spring Quarter: writing a full, researched journal-style article and participating in a peer review process with classmates. 

There will be a weekly discussion/lecture or interactive workshop each Wednesday evening (scheduled for 6:30-7:50 pm in Autumn Quarter) to cover topics relevant to experimental physics in general or to practice specific skills. Pay attention to the course calendar to see the week's topics.

For each project, students will be placed into groups of three. All members are expected to contribute, and to this end, each group will be asked to write-up and approve a group contract. The main purpose of this contract is to establish expectations for how the group will function, including topics such as how people expect to be treated, how work will be divided up, how to communicate timely, and how to ensure equitable contributions by all. By developing this contract, each group will be able to decide on what it means to have an inclusive and respectful collaboration, and to decide how to hold everyone to that ideal. 

Students in a group are free to share data and preliminary analysis with each other, but are expected to write independent reports at the conclusion of the project. Groups are allowed to talk to other groups working on the same project, but any such outside collaboration or discussion needs to be clearly cited in the report.

Group members are expected to collaborate and communicate with each other as needed over the course of the project, but in addition to this, each group also needs to schedule a weekly group meeting. This meeting is an opportunity for the group to meet as a whole along with a TA and/or lab staff member to discuss progress and set goals for the coming week. Come to the meeting prepared to share your own individual contributions.

Participation in the group will constitute 25% of the grade for each project.

At the end of the project, students will submit a summary report. The report is to be submitted electronically as a PDF via Canvas.

The report is a presentation of each student’s work. It is NOT a list of answers to questions or a fact-dump, but should present the experimental results along with supporting reasoning. You should expect that your reader is experienced with the experiment in a general sense and does not need to be told anything already covered in the lab manual, but you should justify choices that you make which may affect the interpretations of your results.

Reports will be graded according to a rubric, provided on the wiki. A typical analysis will be graded primarily on data with plots (using Python), calculations or fits with uncertainties, and conclusions/discussion – though you often will also need to include details about theory or methods (especially if you came up with your own) in order to give context. Emphasis will be placed on proper presentation of data (e.g. in tables and plots), appropriate error analysis (e.g. propagation of errors and curve fitting), complete discussion of the results, and well-reasoned conclusions supported by the data. Discrepancies between predicted and measured results should be addressed and you are encouraged to suggest experiment or analysis improvements.

The analyses are to be typed and should include embedded equations, graphs and pictures. You may prepare your analysis using any word processor, such as Microsoft Word or LaTeX (Overleaf is a popular online LaTeX editor), but it must be submitted as a single PDF file to Canvas. Students may be asked to re-write sub-standard or incomplete reports. More advice for writing your analysis can be found on the Analysis Style Guide (PHYS 211).

Two grace days are given each quarter to allow flexibility on due dates. Unused grace days do not carry over into following quarters. (See “Grace Days” below.)

TAs will work hard to return graded reports quickly, but keep in mind that all submissions for the class come in at the same time and so TAs will have a lot to get through; please be patient. If you have questions on your graded report, please reach out to your TA for more information. If you do not feel you are getting sufficient feedback from your TA, please alert the lab staff.

The project report will constitute 75% of the grade for each project.

Rubrics are provided for each experiment. The rubrics are meant to serve as a guide to important points to be covered. The rubrics also serve to make TA grading more consistent.

Each rubric item will be graded on a 4.0 scale: good (4), adequate (3), needs improvement (2), inadequate (1) and missing (0). These categories correspond roughly to letter grades of A, B, C, D, and F respectively. The approximate grade for an assignment may be found by converting each item's evaluation to a 4.0 scale and averaging the results.

EXAMPLE:  If a rubric has 5 items and you receive 3 'good' and 2 'adequate' evaluations, your grade would be (3*4 + 2*3)/ 5 = 3.6, which is roughly an A-.

EXAMPLE:  If a rubric has 6 items and you receive 2 'good', 1 'adequate', 1 'needs improvement', and 2 'inadequate' evaluations, your grade would be (2*4 + 1*3 + 1*2 + 2*1)/6 = 2.5, which is roughly a B-.

Faculty and staff will determine the final conversion from the 4.0 scale to the letter grade scale at the end of each quarter.

A report is considered to be late if it is uploaded to Canvas after 11:59 pm Central Time on the due date specified for each analysis. Late reports are subject to grade penalties.

If a student plans to be late with a report, they may use grace days to extend their deadline. Students are given 2 grace days per quarter. A grace day is one, indivisible 24-hour period, starting at the due time. Unused grace days DO NOT roll over from one quarter to the next. Lateness after grace days have been exhausted will require student consultation with the course instructor and may not be approved. TAs will automatically apply grace days throughout the quarter unless told to do otherwise by the student. 

If a report is late (after accounting for grace days), it will be given a late penalty. To calculate the penalized grade, G, the TAs will multiply the quality grade, Q, by a penalty factor, p. Thus, G = pQ. 

This penalty factor is as follows: