SYDE 182: Physics - Dynamics

This was the second physics course we had to take - our dynamics course!

My favourite part of this course was the Method of Attack:

1a. Given

1b. Determine

1c. Assumptions

2a. Sketch

2b. Governing equations

2c. Solution

The method attack really helped me frame my problems and give me a clear plan of attack on how to solve them! The professor for this course was also very nice and overall her lectures and communications were very organized. She was so approachable and always available to answer any questions, and I loved how she even gave us words of encouragement and funny memes sometimes to motivate us to do well in the course. She was even available so late at night knowing that people would have questions the day before the quizzes.

The course was split into 4 parts: kinematics of a particle, kinetics of a particle, kinematics of a rigid body and kinetics of a rigid body.

Photo of my notes! I found using Cornell notes worked well for this to split up the different sections of the method of attack

The main deliverables for the course were 4 quizzes, with the first quiz worth 15% and the other 3 all worth 25% each. The remaining 5% was dispersed through 4 assignments given out before each quiz, as a chance to practice and get feedback before the quiz for that section.

What I'd do differently

I wish I spaced things out and kept up with watching the lectures on the recommended dates, as I found myself sometimes stuck having to watch hours of lecture content at once when the quizzes come up. Since there are only four main deliverables worth a lot of marks, I tended to drop everything to focus on physics 1-2 weeks leading up to the quiz, and once the quiz was over, I immediately would feel really burnt out and wouldn't want to look at physics again for at least a few days, which wasn't really sustainable. As we got to the second half of the course, quiz dates were closer together, and there wasn't much of a break period to catch up with everything especially when there are other course deliverables to consider.