SUNY-Geneseo/Physics & Astronomy
Spring 2024
Seminar in Physics
(Phys 341-02)
Thursdays 2:30 - 3:20 pm
   Dr. Pogo  (pogo at geneseo.edu)
   Where's Pogo?
   Office: ISC 228D                                 Discord Office Hours
 
Syllabus (pdf)
Schedule of Presentations
Welcome Letter
Online Critique
Critique Guidelines
Critique Sheet
Reading Assignments:     
generic icon for link to pdf generic icon for link to pdf generic icon for link to pdf generic icon for link to pdf 
Record Reviews here!
Plotting Assignment:
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Current Grades
(grade Request Form)
Gettysburg Address:
generic link to video
Creating Animations:
 generic link to .ppt file
PowerPoint Stand Up:
generic link to video
 
Results Page (for Pogo only)

What am I doing here? The purpose of this course is to give you experience at delivering oral presentations of scientific material and technical information. You will be required to give four different presentations and to critique those of your peers. At the end of this course, you should be more confident when speaking in front of your peers, you should have developed prioritization and time management skills for presentations (since professional talks are frequently only 10 minutes long), you should be more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of technological aids used in presentations (PowerPoint, Zoom, etc.), and you should be more capable of critiquing and assisting your peers with these same skills.
clip art of presentation at office
There is no formal textbook for this class. However, you must read the four very short articles on public speaking (pdfs linked above), taken from various sources, before class on February 1, 2024. You have other assignments also due on that day, as outlined here.
How will I be graded? Your grade will be determined by:

                                           

clip art of presentation
Your presentations will be graded on clarity and scientific content, appropriateness of your visual aids, time management, ability to answer questions, and poise. Design your presentation for an audience having the same knowledge as competent junior physics majors. Your critiques of others will be graded on helpfulness and integrity. Furthermore, the questions you ask of other presenters will be included in your “Critique” grade.
What are the presentations about? Each presentation will be different, and the standards will be higher for later talks. You may not give a talk on the same subject already given by you or another student this semester. Each topic must be individually approved. In all cases, you must create all graphics from scratch yourself.
 
Talk 1: 10 minutes long + 2 minutes for questions. Select a talk from category 1.
Talks 2: 12 minutes long + 3 minutes for questions. Select a talk from category 1, 2, or 3.
Talks 3: 15 minutes long + 3 minutes for questions. Select a talk from category 1, 2, or 3.
     Talk 4: 17 minutes long + 4 minutes for questions. Select a talk from category 1, 4 or 5.
 
Category 1: A simple experiment that you design and perform this semester. At a minimum, you must create at least one relevant plot (e.g., y vs x) with at least 10 data points.
Category 2: A repeated experiment from sophomore physics lab, performed again this semester. You may not choose an experiment for which you already gave an oral presentation in another course. You may not choose from this category twice.
Category 3: An article from Scientific American, Physics Today, or similar journal. The talk must focus on the article itself, so you may not incorporate information from other sources about the same topic.
Category 4: An experiment that you performed in Intermediate Lab experiment. You do not need to repeat the experiment. You may not choose an experiment for which you already gave a talk. You may not choose from this category twice.
Category 5: A more complex experiment that you have never presented to a class before, such as a summer REU project or a PHYS 372 (Undergraduate research) project.
 
Can you make any suggestions for me for category 1?
I didn't think too hard about any of these; maybe they aren't even good ideas.
 
Here are some more details about these: (pdf)
 
    1. Physical (not simple) pendulum: Q value (probably too easy).
    2. Fidget Spinner (or bicycle wheel, etc.) spin down decay rate(s).
    3. Air resistance using coffee filters.
    4. Complex Index of Refraction using a stack of microscope slides (or transparencies).
    5. Torsional elastic coefficient for a string holding an object.
    6. Precession Rate of the ISC Foucault Pendulum   
    7. The neck size of a falling liquid dish soap (or glycerin) stream vs. height.
    8. Cantilever bending of a plastic ruler.
    9. Resonant frequency of cantilevered plastic ruler.
   10. Smartphone accelerometer riding on a swing.
   11. Electro-Mechanical Properties of  a gear motor
   12. Response and efficiency of a photodiode (possible circuit)
   13. Amplification ratio of npn transistor PN2222A (possible circuit)
   14. Helmholtz resonance frequency of a 2 liter bottle as water is added.
   15. Newton’s cradle: coefficient of restitution of each collision.
   16. The pitch of a plucked string with an attached weight (similar to a PHYS 126 Lab)
   17. Coefficients of friction using inclined planes of various angles (too easy).
   18. Index of Refraction of corn oil using Snell's Law and a laser pointer (too easy).
   19. Trajectory motion with air resistance (probably too easy).
   20. Conductivity of glycerin mixed with water by mixing fraction.
   21. Rate of cooling of a heated metal block (probably too hard).
   22. Heat capacity of corn oil using resistive heating. Requires some electronics (probably too hard).
   23. The changing radius of an air bubble rising in a tall tank of water (probably too hard).
   24. Frequency response of RLC circuit (possibly too easy)
   25. Dependence of magnetic force with distance.
   26. Radius of the earth using variation in sunset times as a function of camera altitude
   27. Orbital radius of a satellite based on transit time in the sky.
   28. Angular velocity of the sun using sunspots
 
Twenty Tips for Oral Presentations
 
  1. Know the science of your talk inside and out.
  2. Be careful to not assume that your audience knows more than they actually do.
  3. Stay on topic. Although you may discover interesting biographical material about the scientists who did the work, that is not the subject of your talk.
  4. Don’t include a lot of text in a slide. Visual aids should be visual, not textual. Slides should be primarily for pictorial information and summary points. Whenever you have a lot of text, say it aloud rather than showing it.
  5. When you do have text (such as titles or bullet points), don’t read it to your audience. For the most part, the audio (spoken) and visual components should complement rather than repeat each other.
  6. Memorize your script.
  7. Practice and time your talk aloud several times.
  8. You may bring notes (i.e., 3 ´ 5 cards, or even 8½ ´ 11 paper), but they are for emergencies only, since you’ll have your talk memorized. Well designed slides provide all the prompting that any speaker needs.
  9. Make eye contact with your audience.
  10. Avoid embedded sound effects, and animations that are cute rather than insightful. These suggest that you are filling up time because you have nothing relevant to say.
  11. Make sure that visual aids have excellent (not merely adequate) contrast. Nobody can read a black font on a blue background. Projection images rarely have the same contrast as a monitor seen up close.
  12. Artwork should be clear and as simple as possible to communicate the concepts.
  13. Don’t plagiarize! If you borrow artwork, you must cite the source. You may never “borrow” text of any kind. This is supposed to be your talk, not some web site’s.
  14. Begin on time. You will be given a 59 second grace period to start your technology. If you start late, it is your fault, not the speaker who went before you.
  15. End on time. A 10:00 minute talk should last between 9:45 and 10:15 minutes.
  16. Avoid inappropriate humor. This includes, but is not limited to, “inside jokes”, comments about how the talk is going, and all slides having no purpose other than humor. In a real presentation, your audience will be comprised of 99% people you’ve never met.
  17. Spend absolutely no more than 4% of your preparation time adjusting the layout of slides (borders, backgrounds, etc.).
  18. Be prepared to give your talk even when there is no network connection! This probably means that you have a “physical” copy on a thumb drive when you arrive to class. You will be permitted to reschedule only on days when SUNY closes the campus.
  19. Practice with the actual hardware. Software may be missing, different, or too slow.
  20. Dress appropriately for a formal presentation.