I made a very preliminary start on TMA02 by looking at the Python question and the practical work involving a baked bean can sliding down a chopping board. Both are manageable, just not particularly interesting.
I had an email on Friday asking how SM123 was going. It was more of a questionnaire really. I said the tutorials were a bit disorganised and the skills development component was a bit over the top, which is fair enough, I think.
There was a ‘Forces’ tutorial on Monday which is Topic 1 of the course, and the first of the real science bits. It wasn’t too bad but I fell asleep after about 30 minutes, more due to tiredness of the house hunting than anything else. It attracted about 70 students, which was about 10 times the usual number. I listened to the recording shortly after transmission and it was OK apart from a couple of annoying people who kept asking attention seeking questions.
I had a skills tutorial on Tuesday which was about OCL/Jupyter notebooks. The tutor was very eloquent and really knowledgeable. The quite complex information was put across really well. Python was only briefly mentioned but the tutorial was well worth attending anyway. About 9 others attended.
There was yet another tutorial on Forces on Thursday but this one was a bit basic and really aimed at absolute beginners. In fairness, it was advertised as a ‘relaxed introduction’ so in that sense it did exactly what it said on the tin. The tutor had a cat called Rico that was put on camera, presumably to make the session as informal and accessible as possible. It wasn't the best tutorial I've had, but not the worst either.