ENGR 121 (2021) - Home Page

Welcome to the home pages for ENGR 121: Engineering Mathematics Foundations for 2021 Trimester 1!

Announcements

Announcements will be sent to your myvuw email address, using the Blackboard system. You can also read past announcements by going to the Blackboard page. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU READ ALL ANNOUNCEMENTS AS THIS IS HOW WE COMMUNICATE IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND UPDATES TO YOU!

People

The Course Coordinator is Dr Emma Greenbank (CO548). Dr Emma Greenbank (CO548) is lecturing the first six weeks, Dr Howard Lukefahr (CO341) is lecturing weeks 7,8 and 9 and David Cox (CO547) is lecturing weeks 10-12. You can hover over or click on one of our names to see our contact details. Please contact either the current lecturer or the course coordinator with any questions about the course.

Emma's (course coordinator) office hours in the second half of the trimester are 2pm-3pm on Tuesday and 11am -12pm on Wednesday and Friday in CO548 (Cotton building, south end). Or email emma.greenbank@vuw.ac.nz

Davids's office hours are 1:30pm-2:30pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in CO547 (Cotton building, south end).

Howard is in charge of the labs, their supervision, report marking, and the lab content for this course. He will run in-person workshops TBA.

Class Representatives and Facebook/Discord page

Thanks very much to our two class reps, Ben McEvoy and Ben Scott.

You are Welcome to join the Facebook and Discord pages they have set up:

https://discord.gg/a2xaYsDZyS

https://www.facebook.com/groups/235710354928882/

Rainbow Discord

The VUW UniQ discord server is to be found at https://discord.gg/PyxnDu6 . UniQ is our rainbow representative group on campus. They provide social and support space for students, a critical service during this potentially isolating time.

Extra Help

The office hours of math and statistics academics will be listed here.

Math Help Desk

The Mathematics Help Desk is a good place to come and ask questions if you are having trouble understanding tutorial and/or assignment questions, or material covered in lectures or in your extended reading. You are welcome here any time.

Dr Howard Lukefahr will also run a Workshop for all ENGR students, see info under People above.

Lecture Notes

Assignments and Tutorials and Answers

Labs

Test One

Test One (25%) will be an online Blackboard Test on Tuesday 20 April (week 7). You will be able to start the test any time on that day between 9am and 4pm. Once you begin, you will have 2 hours to complete the test. Each student will be on their honour to ensure that the answers submitted are entirely their own work, done without collaboration with any other person. You can practice using Sample Test 1 (which will be openned in week 6) , plus previous Tests.

Test Coverage: Test One will cover Emma's section of the course (weeks 1-6). Material in Assignments and Tutorials 1-4 is included, as well as printed notes.

Test One is worth 25% towards your final grade.

This formula sheet will be provided with the Test.

Examples of Test One

The best indication of what to expect in Test 1 will be the Sample Test 1

The following are not as good as Sample Test 1 on Blackboard, because they have more limited coverage, but are included here for your information:

• Here is a sample Test One, from 2018.
• Answers to Test One 2018.
• Sample Test One from 2017.
• Answers to 2017 Test One.
• Sample Test One from 2016.
• Answers to 2016 Test One.

Test Two

Test Two (25%) will also be an online Blackboard Test, AS IT IS IN THE ASSESSMENTS WEEK WE ARE YET TO HAVE A DATE.

Like test 1, once you begin, you will have 2 hours to complete the test. Each student will be on their honour to ensure that the answers submitted are entirely their own work, done without collaboration with any other person. You can revise using a Sample Test 2, plus previous Tests.

Test Coverage: Test Two will cover Howards's and David's sections of the course (weeks 7-12). Material in Assignments 5-8 is included, and material in the corresponding tutorials.

Test Two is worth 25% towards your final grade.

Formula sheet

This formula sheet will be provided with the Test.

Examples of Test Two

The best indication of what to expect in Test 2 will be the Sample Test 2

Final Exam

There is now no final exam in T1 2021.

This formula sheet was provided with the Test and with the Exam in previous years. Feel free to use it if you want to, when doing Test 1 and Test 2.

Previous Exams

Past exam papers are found on the library page: Go this page and EXAM PAPERS is an option at the top. Click and search for ENGR121. You'll find exam papers since 2014.

https://library.victoria.ac.nz/library/

Or you can just go here for previous exams.

Here are some past exams and some model answers.

• 2018 exam ENGR121
• 2018 exam solutions ENGR121
• 2017 exam ENGR121
• 2017 exam answers ENGR121

Textbook

The textbook for ENGR 121 is: Engineering Mathematics: A Foundation for Electronic, Electrical, Communications and Sytems Engineers (4th Edition), by Anthony Croft, Robert Davison, Martin Hargreaves and James Flint, Pearson, 2012. We follow this book very closely, and it is also the text for ENGR 122 Engineering Mathematics with Calculus, so it will be very useful. It costs about $144 at Vic Books. It is recommended, not required, since the lecture notes are so detailed.

Also recommended, but not required, is Engineering Mathematics, by K.A. Stroud, with Dexter J. Booth, Palgrave MacMillan, London. About $133 at Vic Books.

Detailed lecture notes will also be posted on the course homepages from week to week. All of these books are also available at the Victoria University library (as ebooks or physical books).

If you want details on how to search the Library resources yourself this can be found at https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/library/how-to-use-the-library/searching-for-resources/using-te-waharoa

Assessment

Here is how your percentage mark is calculated, on which your final grade is based:

Assignments 25%, Labs 25%, Test One 25%, Test Two 25%.

You can miss up to two assignments without penalty as the best 6 of 8 assignments are counted. You can also miss one lab without penalty as the best 3 of 4 labs are counted. You are strongly advised to complete all assignments and labs, to maximise your grade for the course. By completing all assignments and labs in the first 6 weeks of the course, for example, you are then putting marks in the bank for the second half in case you get sick or otherwise indisposed later on. Also, the earlier assignments and labs tend to be easier but are worth the same marks!

Assignments and labs are fully marked, you can get very useful feedback from looking over your marked work.

Videos Of Lectures

We record all lectures to video. To see videos of lectures, please go to Blackboard, select ENGR121, then select Vstream Videos on the top left-hand panel. Recordings become available approimately 1 hour after the lecture finishes. They are also avilable in the lectures by week folders.

Syllabus

Extra Help from Student Learning

There is more help available from Student Learning. They will help you with ENGR121, and they can also help advise on study habits and how to pass courses. Take a look at their website:

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/st_services/slss/