Aims

To build on the experience gained in the 1st year laboratory by carrying out more complex and challenging experiments.

To provide the opportunity to improve presentation skills through the preparation and writing of Formal Reports of experiments and the giving of project talks to a small peer audience.

To provide a solid grounding in the most important techniques used in computer-based measurements.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the module, students should: Be able to use and develop the handling of systematic and random experimental errors and to express final results in the light of these uncertainties; Have developed their ability to record their actions and experimental observations in a clear way in a laboratory notebook; Have gained experience in explaining their work to other scientists in both a written and an oral form; Have the ability to construct Matlab programs to control, acquire and analyse data for undergraduate physics experiments.

Students will be expected to: Research the background to their experiments; Plan their experimental work; Set up equipment and software to carry out experiments; Accurately record their experiments; Make meaningful measurements and estimates of uncertainty; Analyse data and extract information to produce useful results with acceptable uncertainties; Discuss their experiment and make sensible conclusions; Present their experiment formally in writing and orally.