MIT 6.002x has officially kicked off...

[slateraptor]

Just thought I'd let everyone know since the supposed e-mail notification wasn't sent out.

As an aside, spent the weekend setting up an online tutoring portal to benefit my little sisters; Skype and Remote Terminal was starting to suck major donkey balls. 6.002x should serve as an excellent opportunity to test drive the platform's capabilities.

[slateraptor]

First 2 weeks of content knocked out quicker than I anticipated; content is on the order of high school physics thus far. MIT really set the online interface standard high with their new platform. They also did a good job implementing a simple SPICE GUI and pseudo-random coefficient generator for the posted problems; the latter should serve well to curb uncreative cheaters, but it won't be nearly enough to deter the clever ones.

EDIT: Did a bit of browsing around the interface and found that the Profile tab up top (1st attached pic) contains a score breakdown. Then I noticed that a bunch of them showed 0/x 0/y 0/z etc and I was scratching my head a bit trying to figure out what these were pointing to.

Turns out that there isn't just a single lame ass 1-minute video with zero content for every topic discussed in a week...there's a bunch of them that I had completely missed (2nd attached pic). =\ Oops.

[McMonster]

Thanks for the notice. Introductory videos already mention watching kittens on YouTube and Angry Birds, this is surely going to be an interesting course, but nothing's going to beat some lectures on my university like analyzing a nest of aliens (yeah, those from Alien series).

[Mint.]

Thanks for the notice. I had received no email on this, but now I know, so thanks. Looks like I've got a lot of study ahead of me

[MikeK]

Where are you guys getting this info?  I didn't get any email and their 6002x site still shows the "enroll" page.

EDIT: Okay, I see the login.

[McMonster]

I finally received course start notification.

[sacherjj]

I received my notification at 10:06AM (15:06 GMT).

[Zad]

Mine arrived at 15:41 GMT, leaving it until I have some nice quiet time to concentrate on it.

[8086]

Would anybody object if I posted a quick question about the basic circuit analysis homework task? Spoilers and all that...

[Bored@Work]

Would anybody object if I posted a quick question about the basic circuit analysis homework task? Spoilers and all that...

Doesn't MIT have an own forum for this experiment?

[8086]

Would anybody object if I posted a quick question about the basic circuit analysis homework task? Spoilers and all that...

Doesn't MIT have an own forum for this experiment?

There is a "discussion" thing on there but it looks pretty pants. It's only a very basic question. I think there is an error with the system, as I am being told one of my answers is wrong but I really think it's correct. I just need a second opinion to see if I'm right.

[Bored@Work]

Would anybody object if I posted a quick question about the basic circuit analysis homework task? Spoilers and all that...

Doesn't MIT have an own forum for this experiment?

There is a "discussion" thing on there but it looks pretty pants. It's only a very basic question. I think there is an error with the system, as I am being told one of my answers is wrong but I really think it's correct. I just need a second opinion to see if I'm right.

But isn't that something to discuss with "them"? This is a new system, and didn't they run this pilot to get feedback about all kinds of issues?

[8086]

Would anybody object if I posted a quick question about the basic circuit analysis homework task? Spoilers and all that...

Doesn't MIT have an own forum for this experiment?

There is a "discussion" thing on there but it looks pretty pants. It's only a very basic question. I think there is an error with the system, as I am being told one of my answers is wrong but I really think it's correct. I just need a second opinion to see if I'm right.

But isn't that something to discuss with "them"? This is a new system, and didn't they run this pilot to get feedback about all kinds of issues?

I don't want to waste their time without getting a second opinion. I could very well be overlooking something very basic and not realised it.

[Bored@Work]

I don't want to waste their time without getting a second opinion. I could very well be overlooking something very basic and not realised it.

But that would also be valuable feedback. It might be the lecture was not clear, they missed something in the presentation or didn't present it correctly.

And that the forum is "pants" is valuable feedback, too.

And even wasting their time is valuable feedback. They need to get information how much effort / time they have to plan to deal with student questions.

[MikeK]

I would waste their time if I were you.  I've already sent them several messages about errors in the problem descriptions.

[8086]

I didn't read any of their material, as this is stuff I [should] already know. It's just that everything is correct except one question, which leads from another question, using the same values, that it says I have got correct. To give you an idea of how trivial it is, it's a DC voltage source in series with two resistors. The question is to calculate "The sum of the powers (in Watts) entering all of the elements".

I just don't want to go and tell them their system is broken without being sure.

[Mint.]

Instead of worrying, just go tell them you waste more time on this forum when you could of already done it.

[slateraptor]

The question is to calculate "The sum of the powers (in Watts) entering all of the elements".

...but you didn't consider the independent source, which is likely why you think the sol'n is incorrect. The question is intended to place emphasis on conservation of energy.

[8086]

Sorry, I left out "voltage" when I meant to type "DC voltage source" before. It's just a DC voltage source with two resistors in series. I have the source voltage, the total combined resistance, the voltages across each resistor, and the current. This should be more than enough to work out the power, and I have tried both P=IV (current*source voltage) and P=V^2/R (resistor voltage drop squared/resistor value) with the values I know are correct (the site tells me they're right), they of course agree with each other, but the website still says the answer is wrong...?

[IanB]

If it's a closed loop, it sounds like the answer should be "zero"?

[Zad]

I am not even out of week "zero" and there are problems aplenty.

The introductory videos have background music that threatens to swamp the speech. They have used student "actors" to make a point instead of just using a sheet with half a dozen bullet points, thus making a 30 second item last 10 minutes and obfuscating the simple points.

To copy the simple circuit in Lab 0, I have to scroll my screen up and down all the time.

The simulator instructions state that voltage sources will show current flowing out of the (+) pin. Which it sort of does. The arrow indicates current flowing into the pin, but with a negative value. Great way to confuse newbies.

It requires knowledge of Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL) more than a week before it is dealt with in lectures - or should I say a week before it was dealt with in the 2007 videos.

It tells us to use the sign of the first terminal of the first component we come to, to provide the basis of voltage differences. The resistors we have just added have no sign. This would be added arbitrarily in a hand sketch, the polarity being insignificant so long as it is consistent. I am using a negative voltage for a drop and a positive for the supply, but if they chain resistor polarity in the same order as they have denoted the source, my signs will be wrong.

Measuring voltages on the SPICE transient plot, the measured (offset sinusoidal) voltage never reaches 2V, or 0V at 90 and 270 degrees. This is obviously due to analysis step sizes, but as a total greenhorn student I would think something was wrong.

They really are over-doing "hey engineering is fun and exciting" thing. And saying the same things 3 times.

The question and answer area shows a massive 5 questions per screen. I thought MIT were leaders in researching usability?

Not to mention saying the same things 3 times.

Oh and saying the same things 3 times.

[8086]

You are correct, IanB.

I interpreted the question as "Whats the power dissipated by the resistors". I don't know, it seems badly worded. But there you go.

Cheers IanB and slateraptor

How silly I would have looked telling them their website is broken 

[harnon]

Currently working my way through week 1 lectures at 1.5x videos... fairly basic stuff and some bugs on the lecture questions (i.e. type in the answer, click check, it says its wrong... hit "show answer" and the answer is identical... copy and paste their answer... still wrong).

But hey, its week 1 of a pilot program, and its free, what do you expect? 

[slateraptor]

You are correct, IanB.

I interpreted the question as "Whats the power dissipated by the resistors". I don't know, it seems badly worded. But there you go.

Cheers IanB and slateraptor

How silly I would have looked telling them their website is broken 

I wouldn't say badly worded because I think the question was intended to get the student to focus on the lesser noticed abstraction of conservation of energy of an LTI system with independent sources rather than the ability to mechanical apply P=IV.

The question and answer area shows a massive 5 questions per screen. I thought MIT were leaders in researching usability?

Keep in mind that this is an upper-division college level course where a student is expected to have a strong rudimentary background and solid independent study habits, viz. KVL is a concept taught in high school physics and if a student is unfamiliar with the abstraction, then it's a good indication that he/she is lagging behind the prerequisite knowledge curve and needs to consult the (conveniently) free textbook to catch up. Despite any perceived shortcomings, believe me when I say the interface is really quite advanced compared to what students at other major US universities would have at their disposal (it blows my uni's platform out of the water and we're not some small fish in the pond either). Nevertheless, this program is without a doubt a "beta test" for their new platform cleverly marketed in such a way that brings massive "philanthropic" credit to the institute and will gain them exponentially more user feedback than the closed-doors iterative approach that every other university employs today.

[Mint.]

I am not even out of week "zero" and there are problems aplenty.

The introductory videos have background music that threatens to swamp the speech. They have used student "actors" to make a point instead of just using a sheet with half a dozen bullet points, thus making a 30 second item last 10 minutes and obfuscating the simple points.

To copy the simple circuit in Lab 0, I have to scroll my screen up and down all the time.

The simulator instructions state that voltage sources will show current flowing out of the (+) pin. Which it sort of does. The arrow indicates current flowing into the pin, but with a negative value. Great way to confuse newbies.

It requires knowledge of Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL) more than a week before it is dealt with in lectures - or should I say a week before it was dealt with in the 2007 videos.

It tells us to use the sign of the first terminal of the first component we come to, to provide the basis of voltage differences. The resistors we have just added have no sign. This would be added arbitrarily in a hand sketch, the polarity being insignificant so long as it is consistent. I am using a negative voltage for a drop and a positive for the supply, but if they chain resistor polarity in the same order as they have denoted the source, my signs will be wrong.

Measuring voltages on the SPICE transient plot, the measured (offset sinusoidal) voltage never reaches 2V, or 0V at 90 and 270 degrees. This is obviously due to analysis step sizes, but as a total greenhorn student I would think something was wrong.

They really are over-doing "hey engineering is fun and exciting" thing. And saying the same things 3 times.

The question and answer area shows a massive 5 questions per screen. I thought MIT were leaders in researching usability?

Not to mention saying the same things 3 times.

Oh and saying the same things 3 times.

Tell them that!