A day in the P1 or P2 practical course runs from 13:30 - 19:00. We assume that you have familiarized yourself with the basic questions of the current experiment before starting the experiment and that you have completed and evaluated the previous week's experiment. Under these conditions, your day in the P1 or P2 practical course should look like this:

Preliminary discussion of the current experiment

From 13:30 - 14:00 you will discuss the aims and implementation of your current experiment with your tutor. During this preliminary discussion, you will clarify whether

• you have sufficiently understood the physical problem of the experiment to be carried out;
• the objectives and strategy for carrying out the experiment are clear to you;
• your are able to identify and properly operate the equipment required to carry out the experiment.

You should not see this meeting as an exam. Of course, we want to know whether you know what the next 5.5 hours of this test day will be about. If this is not the case, you will not be able to learn anything from the experiment. However, the primary aim of the preliminary discussion is to ensure that you can carry out the experiment as independently as possible and with a clear idea. This can be a difficult task for challenging experiments, especially at the beginning of P1. After the preliminary discussion, you have 3.5 hours to complete this task to the best of your ability. Your tutor is there to help you with this.

Carrying out the experiment

From 14:00 - 17:30 you have time to carry out the current experiment. Your tutor should be available to answer your questions throughout this time. For safety reasons, some experimental setups must be approved by your tutor before they are put into operation. Try to carry out the experiment as a team as independently as possible, but make sure together with your tutor that your implementation is goal-oriented and that the intermediate results you achieve make sense for you in the context of the entire experiment. For this purpose, we strongly recommend that you carry out partial evaluations in the Jupyter-notebook. In this way, you can ensure the quality of the recorded data to the best of your ability, which is generally also good practice in everyday scientific work.

From 15:30 - 16:00, after you have familiarized yourself with the experiment and gained an appropriate overview of the experiment, visit your tutor to discuss the previous experiment. Discuss both the implementation and the evaluation of the previous experiment in the team and personally with your tutor. Present your results and clarify whether there are any objections to the evaluation after the discussion. You will find your tutor on the premises of the previous experiment. This part is omitted when carrying out the first experiment in the respective practical course.

If you have finished carrying out the experiment before 17:30, you can already start with the evaluation and, if possible, complete the evaluation on the day the experiment is carried out.

Introduction to the next experiment by fellow students

From 17:30 - 18:00, use the time to familiarize yourself personally with the experiment to come next: Divide into two groups A and B. Group A remains with the current experiment for the time being. Group B goes to the room of the next experiment and has group A of the experiment there explain to them for about 10 minutes what this experiment is about and what the anticipated procedures will be. After 3.5 hours in the experiment, group A should be able to explain to their fellow students of group B what they have done in the current experiment. Your tutor will support you if necessary. After this time, group B returns to their current experiment and groups A and B swap roles.

Completion of the current experiment

From 18:00 - 19:00 you have the opportunity to complete the remaining measurements of the current experiment. This will bring your protocol to a well-defined end point. For organizational reasons, the lab courses end at 19:00 sharp, even if you have not completed the experiment, yet. In such a case, state in your protocol why you did not finish on time; this is part of the documentation of your experiment. Discuss your measurements and interim results again with your tutor before you leave.

Translate your protocol to pdf format and upload it (as version v0) to the ILIAS system.

Evaluation

The evaluation of the experiment is based on your protocol, preferably as Jupyter-notebook. For your orientation regarding the scope, assume that you should not need more than 2 hours for the remaining evaluation of the current experiment. Please note that the primary aim of the evaluation is to document your measurement and the results obtained with a meaningful personal assessment including corresponding quantified uncertainties in a way that is comprehensible to you and others. Your protocol and the corresponding evaluation should be clear, comprehensible and complete. We explicitly do not require formatting in Latex.

The submission is done by uploading a pdf version of the Jupyter-notebook (as version v1) to the ILIAS system. Please follow the instructions we have provided for you in the Protocol and evaluation tab on the P1 and P2 lab courses websites and in the document Working on the Jupyter server. 

Protocol and evaluation of the experiment

The current version of all experiment instructions and the associated data can be found on the SCC gitlab server at the following web addresses:

• For P1: https://gitlab.kit.edu/kit/etp-lehre/p1-praktikum/students.
• For P2: https://gitlab.kit.edu/kit/etp-lehre/p2-praktikum/students.

For each experiment, you will receive a basic introduction to the experiment, information on the physics context with which you can carry out the corresponding experiment and a template for carrying out the experiment in Jupyter-notebook format. You can find out how to download and edit these instructions from the SCC gitlab server to your working environment on the Jupyter server in the document Working on the Jupyter server.

To carry out and evaluate the experiment, open the template for the experiment (with the title of the experiment and the extension *.ipynb) as a Jupyter-notebook by double-clicking it in your working environment on the Jupyter server.

Use the cells with the headings "Lösung" as starting points for processing the tasks. Delete the text in italic format from the cells. Proceed as follows to complete each task:

• Start with a Markdown cell in which you briefly describe what you intend to do and document the recorded data in text form.
• The Markdown cell is usually followed by a code cell in which you display and process the data appropriately in order to produce a physically relevant result; you can find an example how to introduce measurement values quickly in a code cell here.
• The code cell is followed by a Markdown cell in which you document the result again in text form and discuss it accordingly.

Do not forget to save the Jupyter-notebook (e.g. with Ctrl+s) before you close the contact to the server. Otherwise your work will be lost.

Processing the recorded data

We assume that you will generally specify corresponding uncertainties for all recorded data or assumed parameters. We will explicitly point  out cases where this is not necessary in the instructions. If there is a source from which you obtain these uncertainties, cite it. If not, estimate the relevant uncertainties yourself to the best of your knowledge and belief. Estimating and propagating uncertainties should no longer be a challenge for you, these days. We therefore require you to estimate the corresponding uncertainties for each result you calculate. There are several options available to you for this purpose:

kafe2

We assume that students majoring in physics are familiar with the kafe2 program package for data analysis. You will find the current version of the program package pre-installed on the Jupyter server, whose modules you can easily import into any code cell of the Jupyter notebook using the Python keyword import. A brief introduction can be found in the document Using the kafe2 program package.

PhyPraKit

For those of you who do not know kafe2 or do not feel confident in using it, the faculty provides the PhyPraKit module collection, from which you will probably only need the scripts run_phyFit.py (for parameter estimation) and possibly plotData.py (for displaying data series). You can control both scripts with a relatively simple configuration file. We explain how to use these two scripts and the associated configuration file in the document Using the PhyPraKit modules.

Error propagation in Python

The kafe2 and PhyPraKit software packages do not exclude the use of Gaussian error propagation. However, you no longer have to laboriously extract these with a calculator or from an Excel spreadsheet. We recommend integrating a suitable Python function directly into a code cell of your Jupyter-notebook protocol. This allows the error propagation to be scaled to any number of measured values and parameters and makes it much more transparent for you and your tutor to recognize, assess and, if necessary, correct any errors or inadmissible assumptions in the error propagation.

Alternative methods

If you want to use alternative methods (such as Excel or Origin) for data analysis, make sure in the course of each first experiment in the P1 or P2 practical course that the results and corresponding uncertainties you determine meet the requirements of the faculty. In case of problems, we can unfortunately only offer you minimal support for the use of alternative methods for data evaluation. However, we will try to help you with any problems.

Experiment evaluation

Claim

For us, the focus is on experimentation and the consistent and complete documentation of the experimental procedure! It is important to us that you

• have understood the experiment and carried it out purposefully within the specified time;
• have used and read out the available equipment correctly;
• have gained an understanding of the uncertainties associated with the recorded data;
• have documented all data and parameters for calculating the (partial) results, including their uncertainties, in the protocol in a comprehensible manner (also for outsiders).

We assume that the protocol will be created as a Jupyter notebook during the experiment. It is advisable to provide the template in Jupyter notebook format with all the information you consider necessary for carrying out the experiment or with prepared table, text or code fragments during the preparation for the experiment, which you then only need to modify or complete during the experiment.

Please note that there is no space in the Jupyter notebook for initiating the experiment or for any derivations. Both aspects are already sufficiently covered by the instructions on the SCC gitlab server. We naturally assume that you have prepared and understood the experiment. Ensuring this is part of the query before starting the experiment.

Das Protokoll geht durch die folgenden letzten Schritte in die einzureichende Auswertung über:

• Final check and, if necessary, preparation of all (partial) results. Make sure that the protocols are in a generally understandable and readable form. It is not acceptable to us if your protocols are full of spelling mistakes or sentences are not completed according to the rules of the German language. This falls under the point of general comprehensibility.
• Reflection and discussion of the experimental procedure and the results obtained.

A structured and organized approach to record keeping, as well as a very good, basic understanding of all physical relationships relating to the experiment are basic requirements for meeting these requirements.

We expressly do not want any long derivations of physical relationships in the protocol, which can be taken from the literature or the notes on the experiments anyway. We also do not want any formatting in Latex that goes beyond the set of physical formulas that can be used in Markdown. Both are up to you. However, it will neither be included in the evaluation of the submitted evaluations nor in the time budget we estimate for the workload for successful participation in the P1 and P2 lab courses.

However, it is also not the task of your tutor to collect (partial) results of your protocol from code cells of the Jupyter notebook. If (partial) results obtained for a task are not clearly marked, summarized and discussed in a Markdown cell, the task is considered incomplete.

In the course of the changeover from latex to Jupyter notebook protocols, we have sometimes heard the criticism that protocols in latex typesetting "looked more professional and nicer". Please note the following principle: It is the content that makes the professional appearance of a physicist and not the form. So don't put the cart before the horse - content comes first, then form. You will have plenty of opportunities to familiarize yourself with the typesetting of Latex documents in the further course of your studies.

Preferred document format

We expect the test evaluations to be returned by uploading the completed template for implementation on time, in Jupyter notebook format, exported to PDF, to the ILIAS system. Your tutor can comment on this document electronically. It is mandatory.

To export the Jupyter notebook to PDF, pay attention to our information in the document Working on the Jupyter server. Make sure to execute all code cells before exporting the Jupyter notebook to PDF.

Exceptions to this rule are permitted. Please note, however, that you must always deposit a version of your protocol in PDF format on the ILIAS system so that your attempt has a chance of being recognized.

Example of a protocol with evaluation

We are publishing an example of what an evaluation in Jupyter notebook format (exported to PDF) could look like, after the first day of the P1 test, as a sample solution for the preliminary test data evaluation on the SCC's gitlab server. You can then use this example as a template for all further test evaluations.

Uploading the protocol and evaluation on ILIAS

Upload all versions of your protocol to the ILIAS system for documentation purposes. For this purpose, we have set up areas for all Monday and Thursday groups under the group names Mo01, Mo02, ... in which you have the appropriate upload rights. Store the PDF document of the respective experiment there, as you receive it from the export of the Jupyter server. The file name should consist of the experiment name and the ending .pdf (e.g. preliminary experiment.pdf). You can find information about uploading your protocol in the document Information about uploading your protocol to ILIAS. Be sure to re-read your log before uploading it! You can find a checklist for the upload here.

In the following we use the version names v0, v1 and v2. These designations simply reflect the correction status of the protocol. The physical versioning of the protocols should only be done by uploading a new version to the ILIAS system. 

Upload Version v0

At the end of each experimental day, you will discuss your results with your tutor and upload your protocol as version v0 to the ILIAS system. This process serves as proof that you have carried out the experiment. From this point on, you have at least 6 regular study days to prepare your protocol for submission, reflect on the experimental procedure and finally discuss the results achieved.

Upload Version v1

When you think your protocol is ready for submission, upload it to the ILIAS system as version v1. For this purpose, versioning of uploads on ILIAS is available. Version v1 of your protocol stored in the ILIAS system is considered your test evaluation. Do this by 12:00 p.m. the day before the next day of the experiment! At this time, your tutor will download your protocol from the ILIAS system, review it, comment on it and upload the commented version of your evaluation back to the ILIAS system. You can discuss any complaints with your tutor on the next day of the internship.

Review / Discussion of version v1

Visit your tutor for the evaluated experiment between 3:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. on the next lab day to discuss your implementation and evaluation of the previous experiment with him/her again. If there are no longer any complaints about your test evaluation at this point, the evaluation is considered certified and it receives the note "0" (or "+") in the internship book. If there are still complaints, you have at least 6 more regular study days, i.e. again until 12:00 p.m., the day before the next lab day, to resolve them. Within this period, upload the correspondingly corrected version of your evaluation as version v2 to the ILIAS system. For this purpose, versioning of uploads on ILIAS is available.

Upload Version v2

If there are any complaints, your tutor will only check the version v2 of your evaluation you have stored on the ILIAS system before the start of the next lab day to resolve the complaints discussed. Your evaluation will then be certified without further discussion. Your tutor will re-upload the tested version v2 of your evaluation to the ILIAS system for documentation purposes. If there are still complaints at this point, this will be noted in the internship book with a “-”.

Public holidays

If there is a public holiday on the day of the internship in the week following the day of the experiment, the respective processing time will be extended accordingly until the next regular day of the internship. 

End of the lab course

At the end of the lab courses, you must have an evaluation (i.e. a protocol at least version v1) stored on the ILIAS system for each experiment. Otherwise, the corresponding attempt is considered “not carried out” and may have to be carried out again by you. This is at the discretion of the lab course instructors. It is not acceptable to us if you do not submit any evaluations for the last attempts in the semester.

Furthermore, at the end of the internship, no more than two evaluations with the note "-" may be available in the lab course book. Depending on the complaint, you will have to revise the evaluations accordingly or carry out the corresponding experiments or parts of the experiment again during the catch-up dates after the internship has ended. This is also at the discretion of the internship lecturers.

Evaluation of the protocol

Your tutor will review the protocol you submitted in PDF format and comment accordingly. We envisage the following categories of comments:

• Complaints/defects: These are, for example, errors in content; Inadequacies that make your protocol/evaluation incomprehensible or incomprehensible; unmarked or documented missing parts of tasks or; missing assessments or uncertainties in the (partial) results. We are primarily concerned with content-related complaints that are of a substantial nature for the understanding of the experiment and the factual assessment of your work and your results. Please note that it is primarily irrelevant to us how accurately or inaccurately you met a given expectation with your measurement. It is important to make an assessment within the uncertainties you estimated during the experiment. Even if, in the context of these uncertainties, you believe that your result "deviates far from your expectation", this can still be okay for us if you seriously and carefully examine, reflect on and discuss your measurement.
• Comments: These are all further comments on your evaluation. As a physics student, you should aim to provide a semantically, grammatically and orthographically flawless evaluation! According to your tutor, your physical reasoning should be correct. Maybe your tutor would be inclined to give you a tip or two on how you can carry out your measurements or evaluations even better in the future.

You should definitely correct any complaints and re-upload the corrected evaluation (as version v2) to the ILIAS system. For this purpose, versioning of files on ILIAS is available. We recommend that you not only respond to the complaints but also to the comments of your tutor.

The assessment of the evaluation takes place no later than 14 regular study days (i.e. two test days during ongoing operation) after the test has been carried out, by making an entry in the internship book, as follows:

• "-": Evaluation with (remaining) complaints/defects.
• "0": Evaluation without complaints/defects.
• "+": Remarkably good evaluation with no complaints/defects.

Comments are generally not included in the assessment of the evaluation and if they are, then only in rough cases and after consultation between the tutor and the lecturers of the internship. The evaluation should reflect the entire experiment from implementation to evaluation. It is therefore necessary that your tutor can assess your experiment implementation and evaluation promptly after completing the experiment.

Evaluation of the lab course

We expressly point out that the P1 and P2 lab courses will only be counted as passed. No further evaluation will be given.

It is the rule that the experiments you carry out are graded with a "0". It is irrelevant to passing the course how many of the experiments you carried out were graded with a "+". This is a purely internal assessment system of the internship management and provides corresponding positive feedback for you.

Since you have completed the experiments in pairs, a fair assessment of individual people based on the notes made in the lab course book is not possible.

In rare cases it happens that scholarship holders need assessments of their achievements to provide evidence to relevant foundations. Such an assessment is carried out personally by a lab course lecturer, who will accompany you throughout the internship and/or invite you again for an interview. Be sure to report such a case to the relevant lecturer before the start of the lab course. Such an assessment can no longer be made retrospectively.

• How should I keep a log in Jupyter-notebook? - It is best to use the template for carrying out the experiment (with the title of the experiment to be carried out and the ending *.iypnb). It is best to edit these in preparation for carrying out the experiment, so that you can only enter values if necessary and process them further straight away. Code cells are ideal for the prompt further processing of data (e.g. for the purpose of error propagation). You must clearly label, summarize and discuss each (partial) result in a subsequent Markdown cell. After exporting to PDF format, your protocol should be complete and readable "from top to bottom" in a fluent and clear manner. Before exporting to PDF format, make sure all cells of your Jupyter notebook are running. You will receive an example of an evaluation in Jupyter notebook as a sample solution for the data processing preliminary experiment after the first day of the P1 test.
• When do we upload the "preliminary" version v0 of our protocol to ILIAS? - Immediately after the end of the lab course day (between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.). Beforehand, briefly go through the protocol and the interim results achieved with your tutor.
• Why do we even upload a version v0 of our protocol to ILIAS? - You do this to prove that you have carried out the experiment.
• How much time do we have to upload the experiment evaluation to ILIAS as version v1 after the test day? - You have until 12:00 p.m. on the day before the next day of the experiment to prepare your protocol and upload it to ILIAS as version v1. This should be at least 6 regular study days (including weekends).
• How should we name and label the protocols when uploading to ILIAS? - For each version, use the name of the corresponding experiment after exporting to PDF format. For the corresponding versioning, use the versioning option in the ILAS system. A reference to your group in the file name is not necessary, as your protocol can already be clearly assigned by your ILIAS group.
• After uploading version v0, what do we still have to do to our protocol in order to upload it to ILIAS as version v1? - We assume that you will revise the protocol that you recorded during the experiment to ensure readability and completeness. Review intermediate results and finalize the protocol with well-defined final results. If necessary, present the recorded data appropriately, add uncertainties to all intermediate and final results and reflect and discuss the test procedure and your results. This should take no more than 4 hours of your time. We recommend doing this soon after completing the experiment so that the execution of the experiment is still fresh in your mind.
• What happens if we uploaded version v1 of the protocol to ILIAS too late? - In this case, you can no longer expect that your tutor will have read your protocol and made comments on the following day of the experiment. In such a case, the discussion can be less or less targeted. You should definitely avoid such a situation.
• How do we find out about our tutor's comments or complaints? - Your tutor will check the ILIAS system one day before each lab course day. If he/she finds a corresponding version of your protocol, he/she will read this version of the protocol and then promptly upload a new, commented version in PDF format to ILIAS. Comments are made directly in the text, complaints are explicitly noted in the corresponding viewing window on the cover page. When discussing your evaluation with your tutor, you can discuss the complaints together and clarify any further action required.
• The next day of the lab course is a public holiday – when do we have to upload the protocol to ILIAS? - If the next lab course day is a public holiday, the entire submission and discussion of the protocols is postponed until the following regular lab course day. In this case, the submission as an upload to ILIAS must be made on time at 12:00 p.m. on the day before the next lab course day. This applies to both the initial submission (v1) and the processing of any complaints (v2).
• What does our Turor do with version v2 of the protocol and how do we find out how the protocol was tested? - Your tutor will check the ILIAS system one day before each lab course day. If he/she finds a corresponding version of your protocol, he/she will only check this version of the protocol to ensure that the complaints discussed have been processed and then promptly upload a new, commented version in PDF format to ILIAS. This version contains the attestation with the note "+", "0" or "-".
• We uploaded version v1 of our protocol to ILIAS before the deadline. Can't our tutor read and comment on the protocol earlier? - This depends on your tutor. Neither the lab course management nor you can demand that the tutors are constantly on standby to check ILIAS for uploaded protocols. We ask for your understanding.
• What happens if we get a "-" for our evaluation? - You can afford two evaluations with unresolved complaints (i.e. with the note "-"). If you have more than two protocols with outstanding complaints, you must resolve the corresponding complaints (if necessary at a catch-up date, after the end of the regular lab course). Attempts that you have completed without any complaints will be retained in the system. So you don't have to do it again.
• We cannot work together based on the Jupyter notebook! Why can't we use Overleaf, for example? - We would like you to prepare, carry out and evaluate the experiments as a team, together, at the same place. We explicitly want the personal exchange that is essential for successful studies. In addition, you should be able to complete most of the experiment and evaluation during the lab course day anyway. Using Jupyter-notebook does not represent a serious disadvantage compared to using Overleaf. You are free to use tools such as Overleaf. However, it is not included in our estimated time budget for the work required for successful participation in the P1 and P2 lab courses.