Developing a Low-Cost, Design-Driven Course in Experimental Physics

物理(13)这个项目正在加州理工学院开发一门新型的本科实验室课程，称为物理设计实验室。该课程仿照全国各地非常成功的工程设计实验室课程。在物理设计实验室，本科生被要求在专业的实验室环境中设计、建造和调试他们自己的物理实验，就像他们的工程同行被要求在工程设计实验室设计和制造机电设备一样。资源和设备允许学生在与动态离子捕获、动态磁捕获、量子化电导、约瑟夫森效应和光镊子相关的轨道上“提出自己的问题”和“设计自己的实验”，或者学生可以设计和制作磁电动力学硬币收缩演示。每个赛道都展示了有趣的物理，同时仍然很有趣，而且足够简单，足以让经验较少的学生取得成功。物理设计实验室的首要目标是让学生有机会设计他们的第一个实验，建造他们的第一个简单的仪器，同时使他们能够通过动手体验学习基本的实验技术，从而成为“实习物理学家”。

Physics (13)This project is developing a new type of undergraduate laboratory course at Caltech called the Physics Design Lab. The course is patterned after the highly successful Engineering Design Lab courses that exist throughout the country.In the Physics Design Lab, undergraduate students are asked to design, build, and debug their own physics experiments in a professional laboratory setting, much as their engineering counterparts are asked to design and build electro-mechanical devices in the Engineering Design Labs. Resources and equipment are available to allow the students to "ask their own questions" and "design their own experiments" in tracks related to Dynamical Ion Trapping, Dynamical Magnetic Trapping, Quantized Conductance, The Josephson Effect, and Optical Tweezers, or students can design and build a Magnetoelectrodynamic Coin Shrinker demonstration. Each track presents interesting physics while still being fun to build and simple enough to enable less experienced students to be successful.The overarching goal of the Physics Design Lab is to allow students to become "practicing physicists" by giving them the opportunity to design their first experiment and to build their first simple piece of apparatus, while enabling them to learn basic experimental techniques through hands-on experience.