Modeling with Dynamical Systems
Math 5270
Spring 2000 Final Project Description
Prof. Peckham
Project Directions:
- Select a modeling topic to study. Clear the topic
choice with the instructor.
- Study it.
- Present your results for the class.
- Produce a final report on the project.
Projects should include all of the
following, but the emphasis on each part may vary from project to project:
- An explanation of how the model is developed.
- A description of features of solutions to the model. Typically this will
be determined by a combination of numerical and analytic work.
- Any analysis on how the features of solutions changes as system
parameters are varied.
- Evaluation of the model.
- Some indication of what direction(s) future work would take if you were
to continue working on the project.
- List of references used.
- If your list of references does not include a journal article written in
the last 10 years, find an article related to your project and show it
to me. You do not necessarily need to incorporate it into your project.
- A self evaluation of your project. A few sentences will suffice, but you
are welcome to write more. Give yourself a letter grade. Indicate where your
effort was spent, even on tasks that seemed to lead nowhere.
Timetable of due dates:
- Fri. March 24, 2000. Project title and brief description of plans
for the project. No more than one-half page.
- Mon. April 17 -- Fri. April 21, 2000.
Meet with the instructor to discuss current progress and plans for your Preliminary
Project Report.
- Fri. April 21 or Sat. April 22. Preliminary Project Report.
Give a 20 minute presentation of your project progress so far to the class.
- Mon. April 24. Project outline due. Indicate which of the tasks you have
completed. Indicate also how long each task took, and how long you expect
the yet to be completed tasks to take.
- Mon. May 1 -- Fri. May 5, 2000.
Meet with the instructor to discuss current progress and plans for your
Final Project Talk at the Modeling Conference.
- Wed. May 3, 2000. Title and Abstract due.
- Saturday May 6. Modeling Conference. Half hour talks on your Project.
- Tues. May 9, 2000. Final writeup due.
Presentation Suggestions:
- Practice your presentation with another student before you
present it to the whole class.
- Be concise; don't overexplain.
You will probably be surprised at
how fast 15 minutes can go by. It will be up to the other students to ask
questions to fill in details you may gloss over in your presentation.
- Prepare several transparencies emphasizing the
main point(s) of your presentation.
Caution: Don't write out your talk on the transparency. Putting up key words
or phrases to remind you what to say is usually much better.
Alternatively, you could prepare a Power Point presentation.
- Have a "throw away" topic. Use this topic if time permits, but throw it
out if time is short.
Grading:
Grading will be based on the following:
- Completion of the tasks listed in the Project Directions above.
- Technical correctness of your work
- Originality and Initiative
(Have you included something of your own? For example a new
modeling assumption, a new comparison with some other model, compared model
predictions with new data, ... . Have you looked beyond a single book
reference? ...)
- Significance of results
- Technical difficulty of your project
- Use of Mathematics covered in the course (where appropriate)
- Oral Presentation: preparation, organization, clarity, comprehensibility,
fielding of questions
- Written report: organization (introduction, body, conclusion, graphs
labelled, ...), clarity, readability,
completeness, and neatness