Course Description
PHYS 170 is a class divided into Statics & Dynamics. The first part of the course covers statics while the second part of the course covers dynamics. PHYS 170 covers topics such as 3-D equilibrium, moments, statics of particles, rigid bodies, and kinematics.
Types of Assignments To Expect
Homework Assignments - These weekly assignments are on Mastering Engineering and each question has 5 attempts. You don't get marks deducted for each wrong answer but you do lose all marks for questions where you run out of attempts.
Tutorials - Each week, you can choose a group of students to work with on one problem. All of the problems come from the textbook.
Midterm - In past years, there used to be two midterms for this class. Now there is only one midterm. The midterm questions are two written response questions with multiple parts to them.
Final Exam - The final exam format is similar to the midterm format.
Advice/Study Tips
Study all of the examples presented in class and the homework assignments and tutorial questions. They can be very similar to midterm and exam problems.
Don't attempt to memorize the solution without understanding the underlying concepts behind the problem. This course requires a lot more pre-requisite knowledge of physics and mathematics than PHYS 157 and PHYS 158 to understand the solutions presented. Also, you're more likely to forget how to solve questions by not understanding where the equations and steps came from to solve these problems.
Make your work as organized and visible as possible. PHYS 170 questions can take intense amounts of time and energy and it will be very difficult to notice a mistake in your problem-solving process if your work isn't clear enough.
Always draw free-body diagrams. Not only are they required for most problems, but are helpful visual tools for deciding which forces to use in certain equations.
For this class, you can make a one-page formula sheet for exams. Create one from the beginning of the class and continuously add formulas presented in the textbook and class.
Resources
1. Question Solutions
This channel is one of the best resources for PHYS 170 since it explains relevant example problems for each chapter.
2. Jeff Hanson
A youtube channel that explains engineering statics and dynamics problems.
3. Final Answer
This youtube channel provided video explanations of textbook problems. Mostly useful for statics but not very useful for most dynamics problems. Hopefully, he adds more dynamics tutorials in the future.
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