Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

In my mechanics lecture class last Monday first of all I told them about the schedule of the new practical exam in the lab, which would be the following Thursday. Even though our class was from 240 – 410pm, I asked them if they had class from 1-230pm. Some of them did. But only some.

Which made it perfect. Those who had classes at that time could just schedule their ten minute practical exam in the from 240-410pm window, while the rest could set theirs from 1 – 230pm, and possibly go home earlier if they didn’t have class anymore. Or at the very least, have more free time for their other classes.

I was only able to set it up with the lab technician on Tuesday though, because every time I would go to the lab, it would be open but he would not be there, until finally I left word with the computer lab technician two rooms down and the science lab technician went to my cubicle here in the faculty room on Tuesday afternoon.

For the Monday session the only other thing I did was to give them five problems from the book that they had to solve as a reviewer, all on the topic for the finals, which is two-body and one- or two-dimensional collisions.

They still had a difficult time answering the questions, particularly the parts where sometimes not all the quantities were given but just the ratio between certain quantities (such as the mass of the first object being one fourth the mass of the second object or the velocity of the first object before the collision being twice its velocity after the collision). This required them to set one of the quantities in terms of the other, and hopefully cancel the excess unknown completely from the final equation.

There was also one problem that was the opposite of the usual two-car collision where they stuck together afterwards, which is a rocket booster separation. For this one they had to write only one momentum (mass multiplied by velocity) before the separation, and two after the separation.

By the end of the period they still had not progressed beyond two problems, despite the fact that I already gave them the answers from the back of the textbook (I chose only the odd-numbered questions). So I gave it to them as an assignment.

In retrospect I should have taken the papers they were working on, which would have doubled as their attendance.

Technically that was my last meeting in the lecture, with the coverage of the finals being the one moved from what was supposedly the last quiz, since the class suspensions would have left me with one quiz session and one lecture session for the supposed topic of the finals, if I didn’t schedule a make up class, which I didn’t want to – even for the lab.

Technically also the Thursday session I set was the last one for the lab.

Collisions really is the last topic they are required to learn anyway, and spring or elasticity constants and rotational motion are just supplementary.

That’s all for this week. Next week is Finals, all of which are scheduled for me from Monday to Wednesday. Class dismissed.