ENG1081: Physics for Engineering

8% Midsem, 4x1.25% Online Mastering Physics Assigments, 5% Team Poster at the end of semester, 17% on labs, 5% on a formal report, 60% Exam

I'm going to be honest, I didn't enjoy this unit (and kind feel like as others on here have said, that physics really is cursed). I don't really want to pay out the lecturers here but, there was more than a few occasions where I felt that I would have spent my time better learning it at home out of the textbook, than to waste the hour in the lecture learning nothing. The labs were quite annoying too, with you ending up being left to do all the work on your own when your team members had no idea what they were doing, although they were rotated each 3-4 weeks or so. The formal report was a bit of a mess too, as we found out we had to write it on a lab that we'd completed 4 weeks ago, which most of us had forgotten the key ideas and points about. The team poster was also another mess, as we were only allowed one slide, with a minimum text size of 16 pt, not much information could be fit onto the 'poster', which left a wordy presentation of it, not the most efficient method of doing it. We all did horribly on the mid semester, with not many people passing, as a result, they scaled it which made most people only just pass, although for some of use it meant a 30% increase in our mark, and those who had gotten 70%, ended up with scores of over 100% that counted as more than 100%. The exam itself wasn't easy, with somethings I had to kinda guess and prove it to myself that it fitted the situation on the spot, with the quantum mechanics section being the hardest, and well difficult to get your head around, although in the lectures it was presented at a higher level than the other two sections.
So in short, this wasn't a great unit, but we had to put up with it. Although for those doing aero (and possible mech-dynamics?) there was some overlap with mechanical vibrations (waves in physics) and orbital mechanics, which at some points, I was using what I'd learnt in physics and using it in the aero unit, while using what I'd learnt in aero and using it in physics. So the overlap did help a bit.

Newtonian Mechanics - Dr Mikhail Egorov, Waves - Mr Ali Moghimi, Quantum Physics - Dr Tim Petersen

Yes, 8 past exams, 3 with solutions

2 Out of 5

Yes, with screen capture.

Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Randall D. Knight (2nd edition, Pearson 2008) - Was good for questions and to go over a bit of theory, you didn't 'need' it but it helped.

3x1 hr lectures +1x3 hr Laboratory per week

2012 Semester 2

90 HD