Teaching Mathematica® based computer computations for support of laboratory experiments, special projects, and research for undergraduates taking acoustics and for mentorship students

Abstract

Undergraduate senior level physics majors taking Acoustics and oceanography majors taking Underwater Acoustics and Sonar learn how to use Mathematica® for doing standard laboratory experiments, special projects, solving homework problems requiring detailed computations or graphics. Students in electrical engineering, economics, mechanical engineering and ocean engineering (along with physics majors) have enrolled in a one credit course—Mathematica® 10 for Scientists and Techies. The feedback from students using a computer language in their course work for the first time is very encouraging and the teaching experience quite rewarding. High school mentorships volunteering to do research after school use Mathematica® for doing projects in the Physical Acoustics Laboratory. Some undergraduate lab projects involve Fourier analysis, measuring sound speed vs. temperature in water, and plotting theoretical and experimental Bessel mode shapes (or cosine shapes) for standing wave resonance in a cylindrical cavity. Here, a long slender tube mounted on the microphone probe translates along the radial or axial directions. Students enjoy generating their own data on a spectrum analyzer, transferring files to Mathematica® and plotting tuning curves vs. frequency in Helmholtz resonators. One student got involved in nonlinear drum vibration while another became interested in synthetic aperture imaging, for senior research projects.