Physics Investigative Project

Physics Investigative Project (PIP | SPA7015U)

Year: 4 | Semester: A/B | Level: 7 | Credits: 30

Prerequisites: none
Lectures: NA | (notation)
Exam: Performance during project (20%), Written Report (50%), Seminars and Final Oral Presentation (30%)
Practical work: NA | Ancillary teaching: NA

Course organiser: Dr Craig Agnor | Course deputy:

Synopsis:
(Available only to 4th year MSci students) A student will develop design, experimental, computational or analytical skills through the independent study of a problem in physics. S/he will learn to write a scientific report summarising results of an independent investigation and placing them in a physics context. The project will run through both semesters and will involve an interim report at the end of semester 1 as well as a final report at the end of semester 2.
Aims:
The aim of the investigative project is to give the student the opportunity to work independently on a chosen project towards specified goals. These goals will vary from project to project and may include: writing software to achieve a specified computational task, e.g., simulation of a physical process; carrying out a series of measurements to establish or disprove a working hypothesis; building a piece of equipment, e.g., to interface an experiment to a PC; analytical mathematical analysis applied to the study of a theoretical problem.
Outcomes:
At the end of the project the student will have gained experience in: carrying out a substantial piece of scientific research independently; conducting literature surveys and internet searches to obtain specialist information about his/her project; writing a substantial scientific report describing the research carried out, in producing this report the student will use word processing and graphical software packages such as WORD and EXCEL

Juno Champion

The school holds Juno Champion status, the highest award of this IoP scheme to recognise and reward departments that can demonstrate they have taken action to address the under-representation of women in university physics and to encourage better practice for both women and men.